Patent ID: 8676830

Claim:
A method comprising: storing, in a computer readable storage medium of a computer, keyword frequency data that indicates the number of times each keyword was received in past user entered internet searches over a prescribed period of time; storing, prior to the occurrence of a current search being performed by a current user, in the computer readable storage medium, keyword affinity data that indicates affinities between pairs of keywords used in past user entered internet searches, the keyword affinity data based on a selection of a common Universal Resource Locator (“URL”) from search results of the past user entered internet searches performed prior to the current search being performed by the current user by both a first user and a second user and using a threshold number of occurrences of search terms and a threshold number of occurrences of paired associations of those search terms; assigning, via a processor, a unique integer item code to individual keywords; ordering, via the processor, the pairs of keywords based upon the unique integer item codes assigned to the individual keywords; identifying, via the processor of the computer, keywords from the keyword frequency data that include a selected keyword; identifying, via the processor of the computer, keywords from the keyword affinity data that have an affinity to the selected keyword; prioritizing, via the processor of the computer, the identified keywords based upon the keyword frequency; and communicating, via the processor of the computer, at least a portion of the prioritized identified keywords to the current user as one or more recommended keywords in response to the selected keyword.