Abstract: Linked documents are ranked by observing link selections for referred documents from referring documents and counting such selections. The counts for each of the link selections are stored at various computer systems of a distributed network, a centralized collection of computers connected through a local network, or a hybrid system (collectively, the “system”) consisting of combinations of distributed and centralized systems, and processed (e.g., using a discrete probability distribution defined by the counts of the link selections) to obtain page ranks for the referred documents. The link selections may be observed by a browser extension running on individual ones of the computer systems of the distributed network and the counts of the link selections may be stored at locations within the system determined by a distributed hash table. Search request results may be displayed in a ranked order as determined by the page ranks.

Abstract: Linked documents are ranked by observing link selections for referred documents from referring documents and counting such selections. The counts for each of the link selections are stored at various computer systems of a distributed network, a centralized collection of computers connected through a local network, or a hybrid system (collectively, the “system”) consisting of combinations of distributed and centralized systems, and processed (e.g., using a discrete probability distribution defined by the counts of the link selections) to obtain page ranks for the referred documents. The link selections may be observed by a browser extension running on individual ones of the computer systems of the distributed network and the counts of the link selections may be stored at locations within the system determined by a distributed hash table. Search request results may be displayed in a ranked order as determined by the page ranks.

Abstract: Content items in a distributed system are defined by a respective key, and each such content item is copied to R1 computer systems of the distributed system which have unique identifiers closest to a value of the respective key, where R1 is less than R2 which is less than R3, at least R2 number of the computer systems have copies of any respective one of the content items for all of the content items, and none of the computer systems farther than R3 in an address space of the distributed system have a copy of the subject content item. Modifications of individual content items are synchronized across all instances thereof responsive to a put operation and/or at periodic intervals.