Patent ID: 7596571

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of data aggregation in a network, comprising: receiving event notifications from a plurality of content sites on the network, each event notification indicating occurrence of an event associated with a corresponding one of the content sites, each event corresponding to a change to content associated with the corresponding content site; in response to each event notification, generating event metadata, the event metadata including a time stamp corresponding to the event and change data corresponding to the change to the content; and indexing the event metadata for each event in each of a plurality of different databases with reference to a plurality of index metrics including the time stamp, the event metadata being ordered in each of the different databases according to a different one of the index metrics, the indexing of the event metadata corresponding to each event occurring within seven days of receipt of the corresponding event notification to enable retrieving of the changes to the content from the plurality of databases using any of the index metrics; wherein the event metadata corresponding to first selected ones of the events include inbound link data relating to links pointing to the content associated with the first selected events, and wherein the event metadata corresponding to second selected ones of the events include keyword data relating to keywords identified in the content associated with the second selected events, and wherein the plurality of databases comprises a global database in which the event metadata corresponding to all events are indexed, an ordered-by-time database in which the event metadata corresponding to all events are primarily indexed with reference to the time stamp, an ordered-by-authority database in which the event metadata corresponding to the first selected events are primarily indexed with reference to the inbound link data, and an ordered-by-keyword database in which the event metadata corresponding to the second selected events are primarily indexed with reference to the keyword data.