Re: [ga] Some Wild-Card Questions

["John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Into each life, some rain must fall...

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United States Patent  6,332,158

Risley ,   et al.

Domain name system lookup allowing intelligent correction of searches and
presentation of auxiliary information

Abstract

A domain name server assists user's in selecting desired domains in the
Internet. A domain name query is sent from a resolver process, or equivalent
process, when the user (or a process on the user's computer) wishes to obtain
information. If the domain name exists, the domain name server provides the
corresponding machine address back to the user's computer. However, when the
domain name query uses a non-existent domain name then a machine address for
a computer that executes a domain recommendation engine is returned instead
of a machine address associated with the invalid domain. The domain
recommendation engine assists the user (or process on the user's computer) in
locating a desired domain name. The domain name recommendation engine can
take into account numerous factors that assist in determining the intended
domain, including common misspellings, phonetic errors, sub-domain errors,
past statistics on website accessing by the present user and prior users.
Auxiliary information is provided to the user along with information to
assist in locating the intended domain. The auxiliary information can include
sponsorship information, referrals, advertisements, educational or other
information. The auxiliary information can be in the form of image, audio,
database of other types of information.