Patent ID: 8160936

Claim:
A system for providing information to a consumer, comprising: a processor; a memory accessible by the processor; the processor configured to: provide an interactive website with a means for a consumer to search products for sale over the Internet, the products selected from a plurality of predetermined vendors stored in the memory, the vendors offering the products for sale; provide a results page generated by the processor wherein each identified product resulting from a consumer search is displayed in a list, the list having at least one of a product description, a product image, a product price, a vendor name, or a hyperlink to the vendor; and rank each identified product based on a score generated for the product, the score based on any known manufacturers, distributors and vendors associated with the product; wherein each of the manufacturers, distributors and vendors has a percentage membership in the local economy; and assign a sub-score to each of the manufacturers, distributors and vendors based on the percentage membership in the local economy and the score is generated based on a function of the sub-scores.