Patent ID: 7428705

Claim:
A method of mapping at least a part of one or more web sites having web objects and web links, whereby web objects and links are mapped as nodes and edges, respectively, in one or more web maps, each object being mapped to at least one corresponding node, and there being only one corresponding object for each node, the method comprising the steps of: (a) selecting one or more sets of items for display in the respective one or more web maps, wherein items include nodes and edges corresponding to the web objects and links in at least one web map; (b) displaying the one or more sets of items in the respective one or more web maps; (c) selecting at least one item from the displayed sets of items; and (d) re-displaying the at least one item in at least one web map such that the item is distinguished from any other item in the web map, wherein step (a) comprises the following sub-step: (a1) for each of the objects in the part(s) of the web site(s) to be mapped, adding nodes to the sets of the items such that similar nodes are added to the same set, wherein the similarity of each node and an associated similar node is determined by: determining a directory distance, being a measure of the length of a shortest path between a pair of web objects corresponding to the node and the associated similar node in a directory structure of the one or more web sites, wherein the directory structure comprises a physical arrangement of web objects on one or more machines hosting the web site(s); determining a link distance, being a measure of the length of the shortest path between a pair of web objects corresponding to the node and the associated similar node in a linking structure of the one or more web sites; applying weights to the determined directory and link distances and combining the weighted directory and link distances; and determining the similarity based on the combined weighted directory and link distances.