Patent ID: 7487145

Claim:
A method for processing query information, comprising: receiving from a search requestor a partial search query; the receiving including receiving the partial search query from the search requester prior to the search requester requesting a search on a complete search query that includes the partial search query; obtaining a set of complete queries previously submitted by a community of users corresponding to the partial query, ordered in accordance with a ranking criteria; sending the set of ordered complete queries to the search requester; and prior to receiving the partial search query: identifying a set of historical complete queries previously submitted by the community of users, each of the complete queries in the set of historical complete queries having frequency of submission information associated with the complete query; and generating a plurality of ordered subsets of the identified set of historical complete queries, each ordered subset of historical complete queries including a subset of the identified set of historical complete queries ordered in accordance with the frequency of submission information associated with the historical complete queries in the subset; wherein the obtaining includes accessing one of the ordered subsets of historical complete queries, selected in accordance with the received partial search query.