Index cards on network hosts for searching, rating, and ranking

A method of rating objects stored at a site on a network and constructing a catalog of ratings, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with access to the objects, the method comprising:

• a) receiving inputs from a host of the site mapping one or more of the objects to one or more host defined descriptors associated with a category of descriptors;
• b) storing the inputs in an index file;
• c) running on the site a program which processes objects stored on the site, thereby assembling values found in at least one of the objects for comparison to a list of rating values;
• d) generating a rating for each object by relating the values found in the object to the list of rating values;
• e) aggregating the ratings to generate the catalog of ratings;
• f) comparing the values found in the object to the host defined descriptors mapped to the objects in the index file;
• and
• g) generating a category indication for a result of a search based on the catalog of ratings.

A computer program product residing on a computer-readable medium for performing a method of constructing a catalog of rankings from objects stored within a network, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with one computer storing the catalog and being designated a cataloging site and at least two other computers storing a plurality of objects and being designated source sites, the computer program product performs the steps comprising:

• a) receiving inputs from a host of the site mapping one or more of the objects to one or more user defined descriptors associated with a category of descriptors;
• b) storing the inputs in an index file
• c) running on each source site a program which assembles data relating to objects stored on the source site;
• d) ranking at least some of the assembled data as a function of a set of ranking rules and the index file, thereby assigning rankings to the assembled data;
• e) transmitting the rankings from each source site to the cataloging site;
• and
• f) aggregating the rankings at the cataloging site to generate a catalog of rankings,
• wherein at least one of the rankings relates to a set of objects on the source site and
• wherein an agent calculates a relationship value representing a distance in text between objects and, at the cataloging site, these relationship values are combined with relationship values from other sites to create a relationship value table representing the likelihood of an object being similar to another object.

A computer program product residing on a computer-readable medium for performing a method of rating objects stored at a site on a network and constructing a catalog of ratings, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with access to the objects, the method comprising:

• a) receiving inputs from a host of the site mapping one or more of the objects to one or more user defined rating values;
• b) storing the inputs in an index file
• c) running on the site a program which processes objects stored on the site, thereby assembling values found in at least one of the objects for comparison to a list of rating values;
• d) generating a rating for each object by relating the values found in the object to a list of human input rating values supplied by an owner of the site and stored in a file associated with the site which file is read by said program;
• e) aggregating the ratings to generate the catalog of ratings;
• and
• f) comparing the values found in the object to the user defined rating values.