Displaying web page information through web maps (Intellectual Ventures) - Patent Application - PRIOR ART REQUEST

Question

Seen this before? Web Site Mapping - Bogus #Patent Application #Intellectual Ventures #priorartrequest

AN OVERBROAD PATENT ON organizing and displaying information about Internet web pages on web maps - This application from Intellectual Ventures seeks to patent the idea of...A server system receiving, from a client system, a search request specifying a set of search criteria, the server system performing a search based on the search criteria to obtain a plurality of search results, and the server system providing, to the client system, one or more of the plurality of search results.! 10 minutes of your time can help narrow US patent applications before they become patents. Follow @askpatents on twitter to help.

QUESTION - Have you seen anything that was published before 4/15/1999 that discusses:

• Organising and displaying web pages information on web maps

If so, please submit evidence of prior art as an answer to this question. We welcome multiple answers from the same individual.

EXTRA CREDIT - Web maps may include a graphical representation of information contained on another Web page.

TITLE: Web Site Mapping on a Wide Area Network

Summary: [Translated from Legalese into English] Receiving, by a server system, a search request specifying a set of criteria from a client system, performing, by a server system, a search based on the search criteria to obtain a plurality of results, providing, to the client system, one or more of the plurality of search results, and one or more search results include a result that specifies a corresponding web page as well as at least one other web page referenced by the corresponding web page.

• Publication Number: US 20140052778 A1
• Application Number: US 14/065,308
• Assignee: Intellectual Ventures
• Prior Art Date: Seeking prior Art predating 4/15/1999
• Open for Challenge at USPTO: Open through 8/19/2014
• Link to Google Prior Art Search - "Find Prior Art"

Claim 1 requires each and every step below:

A method, comprising:

1. a server system receiving, from a client system, a search request specifying a set of search criteria;

2. the server system performing a search based on the search criteria to obtain a plurality of search results; and

3. the server system providing, to the client system, one or more of the plurality of search results, wherein provided ones of the search results include a result that specifies a corresponding web page as well as at least one other web page referenced by the corresponding web page.

In English this means:

A method comprising:

1. Receiving, by a server system, a search request specifying a set of criteria from a client system;

2. Performing, by a server system, a search based on the search criteria to obtain a plurality of results; and

3a. Providing, to the client system, one or more of the plurality of search results, and

3b. One or more search results include a result that specifies a corresponding web page as well as at least one other web page referenced by the corresponding web page.

Good prior art would be evidence of a system that did each and every one of these steps prior to 4/15/1999

You're probably aware of ten pieces of art that meet this criteria already... separately, the applicant is claiming The web page referenced by the corresponding web page includes a block of text, and the result further specifies phrases extracted from the block of text

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"Web pages information through Web Maps" from the Applicant

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What is good prior art? Please see our FAQ.

Want to help? Please vote or comment on submissions below. We welcome you to post your own request for prior art on other questionable US Patent Applications.

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Answer 1

This seems to at least partially fit the bill:

"In a virtual shopping mall system, customers can conduct a search for a set of products by designating a particular product category as a search key...Receiving the product search screen data from the mall server, the customer terminal displays a product search screen including a category selection menu to provide the customer with a list of selectable categories. The customer issues a search request after selecting one category from the list. A product searching unit searches the product master table for the products that fall under the selected category. The customer terminal displays a product list screen upon receipt of the product list screen data from the mall server."

Answer 2

The shark-search algorithm:

"This paper introduces the “shark search” algorithm, a refined version of one of the first dynamic Web search algorithms, the “fish search”. The shark-search has been embodied into a dynamic Web site mapping that enables users to tailor Web maps to their interests. Preliminary experiments show significant improvements over the original fish-search algorithm."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169755298000385

Answer 3

WebCutter: A System for Dynamic and Tailorable Site Mapping

"Conventional information discovery tools can be classified as being either search oriented or browse oriented. In the context of the Web, search-oriented tools employ text-analysis techniques to find Web documents based on user-specified queries, whereas browse-oriented ones employ site mapping and visualization techniques to allow users to navigate through the Web. This paper presents a unique approach that tightly integrates searching and browsing in a manner that improves both paradigms. When browsing is the primary task, it enables semantic content-based tailoring of Web maps in both the generation and the visualization phases. When search is the primary task, it enables one to contextualize the results by augmenting them with the documents' neighborhoods. The approach is embodied in WebCutter, a client-server system fully integrated with Web software. WebCutter consists of a map generator running off a standard Web server and a map visualization client implemented as a Java applet runnable from any standard Web browser and requiring no installation or external plug-in application. WebCutter is in beta stage and is in the process of being integrated into the Lotus Domino.Applications product line."

http://www.geckil.com/~harvest/www6/Technical/Paper040/Paper40.html http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169755297000500

Answer 4

Here's an example of potential prior art for this patent application: US5649186

If you are aware of other potential prior art references, please post it here.