Patent ID: 8078613

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for ranking results from a search engine comprising: generating, by the search engine at a server, results from a search query, the results comprising a plurality of web pages, each web page having one or more inbound links; determining, by the search engine, an absolute number of inbound links to each web page in the results from the search query at a first point in time; identifying, by the search engine in the results from the search query, web pages having an absolute number of inbound links that is less than a predetermined threshold, wherein remaining web pages have an absolute number of inbound links that is not less than the predetermined threshold; computing, by the search engine, a growth of the number of inbound links of each web page in the results from the search query, wherein the computing excludes the identified web pages that have an absolute number of inbound links that is less than the predetermined threshold; ranking, by the search engine, each web page in the results from the search query that has an absolute number of inbound links above the predetermined threshold based on a function of its respective computed growth of the number of inbound links; and providing, by the search engine, a response to the search query using the ranking of web pages that depends on the growth of the number of inbound links of the web pages.