Patent ID: 7680775

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, at a search engine, a plurality of signals, wherein each signal includes a query from a user; measuring, at the search engine, each query using one or more metrics, to determine measured data for each query; associating, at the search engine, the measured data with the metric used to measure it; storing the measured data of each query and the metric associated with it on a medium; associating, at the search engine, each query with at least one topical query category of a plurality of topical query categories using the stored measured data and the metric associated with it; providing, at the search engine, a client with a tool to select a topical query category from the plurality of topical query categories; receiving from the client, at the search engine, a selection of a topical category; providing, at the search engine, the client with a tool to select data associated with a metric of the one or more metrics, wherein the metric is associated with the selected topical category; receiving from the client, at the search engine, a request for data associated with a selected metric of the one or more metrics; and transmitting, by the search engine, the stored measured data associated with the selected metric to the client in response to the metric data request; and compiling the requested metric data for the selected category into a 2-dimensional graph.