Patent ID: 7487144

Claim:
A method for automatically presenting inline answers or suggestions from user-created web-search verticals in response to a general web-search query, the method comprising: receiving a general web-search query from a user in a web-search user interface that has been customized by the user selecting to install one or more user-created web-search vertical tabs in the web-search user interface, wherein the user-created web-search verticals have been created by one or more search-engine consumers rather than a search-engine provider; obtaining general web-search results from the World Wide Web based on the query; accessing the user-created web-search verticals that have been installed in the customized user-interface by the user; determining whether answers or suggestions relevant to the query are available from the installed user-created web-search verticals by first accessing a user-created definition for each of the installed user-created web-search verticals to determine whether return of answers or suggestions are supported by each of the installed user-created web-search verticals, and, second, determining whether any keywords from the query are present in a programmed keyword list in each of the installed user-created web-search verticals; and if return of answers or suggestions are supported and if any keywords from the query are present, then, presenting, on a common display with the general web-search results, at least one answer or suggestion from an installed user-created web-search vertical that supports answers or suggestions and that has at least one keyword from the query in its programmed keyword list.