Method for statistically projecting the ranking of information

A computer implemented method for ranking records of a database located during a search of an index to the database, comprising:

• indexing the records of the database by storing index entries in a memory to create the index, each index entry including a word entry representing a unique portion of information of the database and one or more location entries indicating where the unique portion of information represented by the word entry occurs in the records of the database;
• assigning a weight to each index entry according to a relative frequency of occurrence of the portion of information in the database;
• parsing a query into terms and operators, each term associated with a corresponding index entry;
• sequentially searching index entries to locate records of the database which are qualified by the terms and operators of the query;
• scoring each located record according to the number of times portions of information corresponding to the terms of the query occur in each record and their associated weights;
• storing the scores and identities of the located records in entries of a ranking list, the ranking list having a predetermined number of entries;
• and
• in response to having searched a predetermined fraction of the index, determining if any unlocated records of the database can receive a score higher than one of the records stored of the ranking list based the index entries corresponding to the terms having a lowest weight, and if not, searching the index using only using the index entries having weights higher than the lowest weight.