IMPROVEMENTS RELATING TO SEARCH ENGINES

摘要

A user-configurable search engine system (100) for executing a complex multi-parameter data search in accordance with a search query specified at a remotely-located user terminal (101) is described. The search engine system comprises: a plurality of stored query construction components (106, 107) including a plurality of different user-configurable query templates (106); a query construction module (310) for providing user access to the query construction components (106,106a) enabling a user at the remotely-located terminal (101) to construct a complex user-defined multi-parameter search query (104) having a bespoke user-selected format; a query pre-processing module (110) for transmitting the user-defined multi-parameter query to a plurality of content providers (120); a response collator (330) for collating a plurality of received content responses (108) to the multi-parameter query (104) from the plurality of content providers (120); wherein the plurality of received content responses correspond in format to the bespoke user-defined format of the multi-parameter query (104) and the response collator (330) is arranged to populate a content database (140) with the plurality of content responses (108) in the user-selected format; a database query engine (320) for searching the content database (140) for content responses (108) matching the user-defined multi-parameter query (104) and for returning to the user terminal (101) a set of results of the content responses corresponding to the multi-parameter query (104) that are ranked in order of degree of matching to the query (104).