Patent ID: 6959326

Claim:
A method for searching data repositories managed by different content providers to gather indexable metadata on content at addressable locations at the data repositories, comprising: accessing customizable settings capable of being customized by the content provider, wherein the customizable settings provide an addressable location of at least one content page in the data repository and a parameter comprising a query term for at least one included addressable location; for each provided addressable location for which there is the query term, accessing the content page at the addressable location at the content provider's data repository indicated in the customizable settings; processing the accessed content page using the provided query term at each provided addressable location to obtain query results; and generating metadata from the obtained query results to add to an index of metadata for accessed addressable locations at the data repository, wherein customizable settings from the different content providers are accessed to generate the metadata for the accessed content pages, and wherein the index of metadata includes metadata on content from the data repositories of the different content providers.