Search and index hosting system

Claim 3

A method according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of outputting identities of the documents identified in the identifying step.

Claim 4

A method to claim 1 , wherein the database is located on the internet.

Claim 5

A method according to claim 1 , wherein the one or more indices stored in the storing step also contain location information of data within documents, further comprising the steps of: storing, in memory, compressed data which corresponds to data stored in each of the plural databases; searching for locations of the user-specified data in the documents identified in the identifying step; generating pointers into the compressed data based on the search conducted in the searching step; selecting compressed data from memory that corresponds to the provider identifier; decompressing segments of the compressed data selected in the selecting step that correspond to the pointers generated in the generating step; and outputting the decompressed segments.

Claim 6

A method according to claim 4 , wherein the pointers identify the user-specified data in the compressed data, together with a predetermined amount of adjacent data.

Claim 7

A method according to claim 4 , wherein the pointers identify the user-specified data in the compressed data, together with a variable amount of additional data.

Claim 8

A method according to claim 4 , wherein the amount and/or location of the additional data relative to the user-specified data are set by the user.

Claim 9

A method according to claim 4 , wherein each segment of decompressed data includes a document identifier which identifies a document containing the segment; and wherein the method further comprises the steps of: storing, in memory, locations of documents in the plural databases, together with corresponding document identifiers; extracting, from memory, locations of documents which contain the segments of decompressed data based on the document identifiers associated with the segments; and outputting the locations of the documents which contain the segments of decompressed data.

Claim 10

A method according to claim 8 , wherein the locations of the documents comprise uniform resource locators.

Claim 11

The method of claim 1 , further comprising: sending a request from the computer employed by the user to the second site location.

Claim 14

The method of claim 11 wherein the one of the plural databases is published on the Internet.

Claim 15

The method of claim 11 further comprising: sending a request from the first site location to the second site location.

Claim 18

The apparatus of claim 14 further comprising: a third processor that executes instructions that send a request from the computer employed by the user to the second site location.

Claim 21

The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the processor sends a request from the first site location to the second site location.

Claim 22

Computer-executable process steps stored on a computer-readable medium, the computer-executable process steps to host a search for documents in a database that contain user-specified data, the user-specified data being entered at a computer employed by a user, the computer-readable medium comprising: code to store, at a host, one or more indices of data in plural databases, the one or more indices identifying documents that contain data; code to provide, from a second site location to the computer employed by the user, a provider identifier associated with said second site location; code to receive, at the host, from the computer employed by the user, the user-specified data and the provider identifier which corresponds to one of the plural databases describing data at said second site location, and wherein each of the plural databases describes data from a different site location associated with a unique provider identifier; code to retrieve, at the host, an index of data; and code to identify documents in the retrieved index that contain the user-specified data and appear in the database corresponding to the provider identifier, thereby performing a search of the database corresponding to the provider identifier at the host.

Claim 23

Computer-executable process steps stored on a computer-readable medium, the computer-executable process steps to host a search for documents in a database that contain user-specified data, the user-specified data being entered at a computer employed by a user, the computer-readable medium comprising: code to store, at a host, one or more indices of data in plural databases, the one or more indices identifying documents that contain data; code to provide, from a second site location to the computer employed by the user, a provider identifier associated with said second site location; code to receive, at the host, from the computer employed by the user, the user-specified data and the provider identifier which corresponds to one of the plural databases describing data at said second site location, and wherein each of the plural databases describes data from a different site location associated with a unique provider identifier; code to retrieve, at the host, an index of data; and code to identify documents in the retrieved index that contain the user-specified data and appear in the database corresponding to the provider identifier, thereby performing a search of the database corresponding to the provider identifier at the host.

Claim 24

The computer-readable medium of claim 18 further comprising: code to send a request from the computer employed by the user to the second site location.

Claim 25

Computer-executable process steps stored on a computer-readable medium, the computer-executable process steps to host a search for documents in a database that contain data specified by a user at a first site location, the computer-readable medium comprising: code to store, at a host, one or more indices of data in plural databases, the one or more indices identifying documents that contain data; code to provide, from a second site location to the first site location, a provider identifier associated with said second site location; code to receive, at the host, data specified by the user and the provider identifier which corresponds to one of the plural databases describing data at said second site location, and wherein each of the plural databases describes data from a different site location with a unique provider identifier; code to retrieve, at the host, an index of data; and code to identify documents in the retrieved index that contain the user-specified data and appear in the database corresponding to the provider identifier.

Claim 26

Computer-executable process steps stored on a computer-readable medium, the computer-executable process steps to host a search for documents in a database that contain data specified by a user at a first site location, the computer-readable medium comprising: code to store, at a host, one or more indices of data in plural databases, the one or more indices identifying documents that contain data; code to provide, from a second site location to the first site location, a provider identifier associated with said second site location; code to receive, at the host, data specified by the user and the provider identifier which corresponds to one of the plural databases describing data at said second site location, and wherein each of the plural databases describes data from a different site location with a unique provider identifier; code to retrieve, at the host, an index of data; and code to identify documents in the retrieved index that contain the user-specified data and appear in the database corresponding to the provider identifier.

Claim 27

The computer-readable medium of claim 20 further comprising: code to send a request from the first site location to the second site location.