Patent ID: 7376752

Claim:
A method comprising: accepting a string of characters representing a possibly incorrectly entered URL; parsing the string into a set of URL parts, a part formed from characters having values in a first space of characters, each part having a corresponding distance measure of closeness for measuring distances between URL parts; forming a signature of each URL part, forming said signature including, in the case the distance measure of closeness for a URL part in the first space in integer valued, transforming the characters of the URL part whose values are in the first space into characters in a second space such that the distance measure of closeness is transformed to a distance measure of closeness that is not necessarily integer valued; for each URL part, searching for at least one cluster of a set of pre-formed clusters, the set of pre-formed clusters being clusters of valid URL parts that are close according to the distance measure of closeness that is not necessarily integer valued, each cluster in the set of pre-formed clusters having a representative URL part and signature thereof, the searching using the signature of the URL part; further searching for a valid URL part within each cluster found in the searching step, wherein at least one URL part includes one or more non-text non-numerical characters.