Method and System for Incrementally Selecting and Providing Relevant Search Engines in Response to a User Query

A user-interface system for incrementally providing fully qualified links to a set of relevant search engines, the system comprising:

• a catalog in computer readable format including a set of search engines identities, each of at least a plurality of search engines being associated with at least one descriptive category to which the subject matter of the corresponding search engine relates;
• computer memory comprising instructions in computer readable form that when executed cause a computer system to:
• receive a partial search query entered on a keypad by a user;
• infer, after at least one keypress received from the user, a set of potential full queries intended by the user, based at least in part on the partial search query;
• select a subset of the identified search engines that are relevant to at least one of the set of inferred full queries based on comparing the inferred full queries with the descriptive categories associated with the search engines;
• and
• provide, for each of the selected search engines, a fully qualified link designed to directly launch a search for a relevant query using the search engine.