Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that generates an index to facilitate searching through text within a document based upon an index stylesheet associated with the document. The system operates by receiving a document to be indexed and then parses the document to produce a parsed document. The system also retrieves instructions for creating the index for the document from an index stylesheet associated with the document. The system creates the index for the document by transforming the parsed document in a manner that is specified by the instructions retrieved from the index stylesheet. In one embodiment of the present invention, retrieving the index stylesheet involves retrieving the index stylesheet across a network from a remote address.

Abstract: Network browsing is facilitated by receiving a document from the network containing content; extracting conceptual information from the content of the document; analyzing the extracted conceptual information semantically; and assimilating the extracted conceptual information into an index based on structural relationships among the extracted conceptual information and semantic data in a stored lexicon.