I am searching for the owner of linkrank.com in the time period of
1996-1997. I already tried the "whowas" database of Open Access's
Dialog service, however, the earliest record they have is from 1999.

---

Request for Question Clarification by nancylynn-ga on 09 Oct 2005 17:28 PDT

Hi pander-ga: 

I have not been able to find the circa '96-'97 owner either. I'm
contacting the company that now owns LinkRank.com, on your behalf.

I will post that information here, just as soon as I hear back.

Best Regards,
nancylynn-ga
Google Answers Researcher

---

Clarification of Question by pander-ga on 09 Oct 2005 18:17 PDT

This is the information I got using Dialog Select. The earliest date
that can be determined is late 1999.

Record Date: September 26, 2002    Type: WhoWas 

Domain Information 

   linkrank.com 

   Status: Registered 
   Registrar: NetworkSolutions, Inc. 
   Expires: October 01, 2003 
   Created: October 01, 1999 

Registrant Information
   Name: Icorea Co. Ltd. 
* Address: Maru Bldg 1F 86-6 Nonhyun-Dong Kangnam
                   Seoul,135-010
                   KR 

Administrative Contact
   Name: Lee,Kunpyo 
   Email: kplee@ICOREA.NET 
   Organization: Icorea 
   Address: Maru Bldg 1F
                   Nonhyun-dong Kangnam
                   Seoul, 135-010
                   KR 
   Telephone: +82-2-6241-4141 
   FAX: +82-2-6241-4150 

Technical Contact
   Name: Jung-kil, Hwang 
   Email: ansi_forever@YAHOO.CO.KR 
   Organization: BAE-SU 
   Address: 1427-4 SILIM 5DONG KWAN-AK GU SEOUL KOREA
                   SEOUL
                   KR 
   Telephone: 82-2-18-534-7677 

Name Servers
   ns2.hananet.net - 210.180.98.69
   ns.hananet.net - 210.94.0.7

---

Request for Question Clarification by nancylynn-ga on 10 Oct 2005 22:33 PDT

Thanks for that information.

Unfortunately, I have not yet received a reply from the current owner,
so will call them tomorrow.

---

Request for Question Clarification by nancylynn-ga on 11 Oct 2005 12:35 PDT

Just letting you know that I spoke with John Mandell, Director of
Operations at PubSub Concepts, the current owner of LinkRanks, and
they are very kindly looking into this matter on our behalf.

I hope to post an answer within the next few days.

Regards,
nancylynn-ga
Google Answers Researcher

---

Request for Question Clarification by nancylynn-ga on 11 Oct 2005 17:16 PDT

OK, we seem to have a spelling discrepancy, leading to Web site
discrepancies! There's about four different sites with variations of
this name.

There's a LinkRanks.com:
http://www.pubsub.com/linkranks.php

Linkranker.com: 
http://www.linkranker.com/ 

Linkranks.com:
http://www.linkranks.com/

And you cited linkrank.com: 
http://www.linkrank.com/ 

The last two sites appear to be pretty much dead. But do any of them
look like the site you're thinking of?

Of course, Google reads the various spellings of linkranks as one and
the same, ignoring capitalized letters, etc. And, early in my research
I somehow came to the (mis)understanding that PubSub Concepts had
bought the linkrank.com you were thinking of.

I contacted PubSub Concepts about LinkRanks, and Jon Mandell of PubSub
helped straighten me out:
 
"Linkranks.com is not owned by PubSub Concepts.  According to
Whois.com the domain is registered to someone in Panama and does not
appear to be used.

"LinkRanks is a service provided by PubSub. Here is some background.

"LinkRanks, the Blogosphere's most comprehensive tool for tracking the
popularity and influence of blogs and websites. This unique service
provides detailed data that bloggers and feed publishers can use to
actively monitor the results of their publishing efforts, and gain
insight into how to improve their future rank and influence."  

http://www.pubsub.com/linkranks.php

Here's MSNBC's September 26, 2005 story on PubSub: "PubSub's LinkRanks
Measures Blog, RSS Feed Movement and Popularity. Comprehensive
Measurement Tool Shows Strength, Persistence, and Vitality of Feeds
from More Than 16 Million -- and Growing -- Monitored Sources":
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9489691/

Does LinkRanks seem different than the linkrank.com site you remember?
Anything you can recall about the site may provide a helpful clue.

I've made one last inquiry into the past ownership of
www.linkrank.com, but frankly, I'm not too optimistic. I will
certainly update you if I hear anything.

I'm going to relinquish my lock on this question in hopes that another
researcher can help you, since I haven't been able to find anything
about the ownership -- or even general history of -- www.linkrank.com.

Best Regards,
nancylynn-ga 
Google Answers Researcher

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 11 Oct 2005 17:25 PDT

pander-ga,

Since nancylynn-ga seems to have run into a dead end, I thought I'd
have a look at this one.  It's a tough challenge.

I checked Dialog, and found five records for linkrank.com -- I assume
you've already checked all five...correct?

There were also some records for link-rank.com -- might these be
related to what you need?

Look forward to hearing back from you.


pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by pander-ga on 13 Oct 2005 15:05 PDT

I did check all records at Dialog Select, however, nothing dates back
to 1996-1997. All I know about www.linkrank.com is that it was at that
time (1997) a search engine similar to Google.

---

Request for Question Clarification by nancylynn-ga on 13 Oct 2005 17:10 PDT

You wrote:

"All I know about www.linkrank.com is that it was at that time (1997)
a search engine similar to Google."

As far as I know, the services that contain variations of the spelling
linkrank.com are not search engines; they measure the popularity of
pages and web sites. They're somewhat similar to Google's PageRank,
but they're not search engines.

---

Clarification of Question by pander-ga on 14 Oct 2005 00:13 PDT

I'm not searching for information on "variations" of linkrank.com. I'm
searching for information on linkrank.com exactly as spelled. In early
1997 linkrank.com was a little-known search engine, but it
subsequently closed down. The linkrank.com of 1997 has no relation
with the linkranks.com of pubsub.

---

Request for Question Clarification by nancylynn-ga on 14 Oct 2005 05:18 PDT

I understand. 

Unfortunately, I can't find any information about a linkrank.com in the mid-90s.

I hope one of my colleagues can help you.

nancylynn-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 15 Oct 2005 11:54 PDT

Where did you learn that linkrank.com was a search engine in
1996-1997?  If we know the source of your information, perhaps that
will help us to find the ownership from that time.

---

Clarification of Question by pander-ga on 16 Oct 2005 09:23 PDT

This is a link to the Provisional Patent Application filed by Larry
Page the co-founder of Google and the inventor of the PageRank search
engine algorithm. Click on the "Miscellaneous Incoming Letter" link to
read the application. (You can also download the entire file by
checking the box and selecting "Start Download). Towards the end of
the document Larry Page mentions a new search engine called
Linkrank.com.

http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_CH/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.getBib/.c/6_0_69/.ce/7_0_1ET/.p/5_0_18L/.d/6?selectedTab=ifwtab&isSubmitted=isSubmitted&dosnum=60035205#

---

Request for Question Clarification by nancylynn-ga on 16 Oct 2005 12:52 PDT

OK, I see the reference to linkrank.com on page 10.

My understanding is that the original linkrank.com measured the
popularity of Web sites, much like Google's PageRank.

As best I can tell from a quick reading of this filing, Page is
comparing Google's PageRank methodology (if that's the correct term)
to www.linkrank.com's re: weighing the value and relevance of a page.

When Page mentioned linkrank.com on page 10, I think he meant in the
context of what he was saying earlier about yielding "well-cited or
'important'" results, and in which order the results are shown. For
instance, on Page 6: "I will call this approximation to importance
PageRank from now on."

Then, when Page mentions linkrank.com on page 10, it's after a very
long dissertation on PageRank. His reference to linkrank.com doesn't
seem to pertain to search engines specifically; actually, he doesn't
really expand on the comparison. *I'm* taking him to mean the order,
relevance, popularity of the results, in his reference to
linkrank.com.

(Maybe we should just call Larry Page and ask him if he remembers who
owned linkrank.com. :)

I was not able to find any information about linkrank.com as a search engine, 
a la Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, et al. 

If you type "linkrank.com" into a search engine, you get
"linkrank.com: The Leading Search Engine Positioning Site on the Net."
But when you click on the link, you go to:
http://linkrank.com/ 
Which appears to be dead. I did contact Name Administration Inc.,
listed as the copyright holder at the bottom of the page, but I never
heard back from them.
 
I'm afraid I haven't been able to find any information at all about
who founded linkrank.com, or what was going on with that company in
the 1990s. (You've found more information on the company than any GA
researcher has!)

I'm sorry I struck out. I hope one of my colleagues can help you.

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 30 Oct 2005 15:16 PST

Hello pander-ga,

Here is the statement of Larry Page from the Provisional Patent
Application you referred to:

------------------------------
Possible Close or Related Patents

There is a company, which I have recently become aware of, located at
http://www.linkrank.com/. They seem to be getting similar results, but
they do not explain their methods in any detail. They claim they have
a patent pending.
------------------------------

I have found conclusive evidence that this reference is incorrect and
that the search engine Larry Page is referring to had a similar name
but with a slight variation of ?linkrank.? I can fully document
information about the origin and demise of this search engine.

However, your request is asking for information about linkrank.com.
Like my fellow researchers, I have come up empty-handed on this
domain.

I can?t tell from your question what is the ultimate purpose of your
search. If you?re looking for the search engine mentioned in the
patent application you cited, I have full information. If you?re
looking for information about the linkrank domain name, I have
nothing. Please tell me if the information I?ve found will meet your
needs.

I look forward to your clarification.

~ czh ~

Hello pander-ga,

Your last clarification indicates that you?re looking for the search
engine mentioned in Larry Page?s provisional patent filing that
mentions linkrank.com as a ?possible close or related? patent.

http://snipurl.com/jamr

-----------------------------
Possible Close or Related Patents

There is a company, which I have recently become aware of, located at
http://www.linkrank.com/. They seem to be getting similar results, but
they do not explain their methods in any detail. They claim they have
a patent pending.
-----------------------------



Searching for linkrank.com in the timeframe of the patent filing has
come up with nothing.


I assumed that Larry Page knew about the competitive landscape of
search engines when he filed the provisional patent application so I
searched for contemporaneous literature to see what he, or someone
else, might have said about Linkrank in this context.

===================================
GOOGLE PATENT AND RELATED DOCUMENTS
===================================

http://www.corporatewebsitemarketing.com/bhartzer/Mar05feed/Google_PageRank_Patent.rss.html
Google PageRank Patent

-------------------------------------------------

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6285999.WKU.&OS=PN/6285999&RS=PN/6285999

United States Patent: 6,285,999, September 4, 2001
Inventors: 	Page; Lawrence (Stanford, CA) 
Assignee: 	The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior
University (Stanford, CA)
Appl. No.: 	004827
Filed: January 9, 1998
Title: Method for node ranking in a linked database 

Abstract
A method assigns importance ranks to nodes in a linked database, such
as any database of documents containing citations, the world wide web
or any other hypermedia database. The rank assigned to a document is
calculated from the ranks of documents citing it. In addition, the
rank of a document is calculated from a constant representing the
probability that a browser through the database will randomly jump to
the document. The method is particularly useful in enhancing the
performance of search engine results for hypermedia databases, such as
the world wide web, whose documents have a large variation in quality.

Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Hyperlink Search Engine, developed by IDD Information Services,
(http://rankdex.gari.com/) uses backlink information (i.e.,
information from pages that contain links to the current page) to
assist in identifying relevant web documents. Rather than using the
content of a document to determine relevance, the technique uses the
anchor text of links to the document to characterize the relevance of
a document. The idea of associating anchor text with the page the text
points to was first implemented in the World Wide Web Worm (Oliver A.
McBryan, GENVL and WWWW: Tools for Taming the Web, First International
Conference on the World Wide Web, CERN, Geneva, May 25-27, 1994). The
Hyperlink Search Engine has applied this idea to assist in determining
document relevance in a search. In particular, search query terms are
compared to a collection of anchor text descriptions that point to the
page, rather than to a keyword index of the page content. A rank is
then assigned to a document based on the degree to which the search
terms match the anchor descriptions in its backlink documents.

===



Using the competitor information from the Google patent I decided to
investigate the other search engines mentioned and the ranking and
backlinking technologies involved. This led me to research Hyperlink,
Rankdex and the World Wide Web Worm. It quickly became apparent the
Hyperlink/Rankdex was the most relevant thread to follow.


==================================================
REFERENCES TO HYPERLINK AND RANKDEX SEARCH ENGINES
==================================================

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/context/1233865/0
Automatic Web Page Categorization by Link and Context.. - Attardi,
Gullì.. (1999) (22 citations)Self-citation (Attardi)   (Correct)

....the text of documents that point to documents containing images.
Rankdex [Li 98] is a search engine based on standard information
retrieval techniques applied to the anchor text of Web links. Table 1
summarizes the main features and techniques used in the system we have
discussed. Theseus [Attardi 98] ARC [Chakrabarti98] Google [Brin 98]
Rankdex [Li 98] Stemming yes no no no Stop word removal yes no
optional no Incoming links yes yes yes yes Outgoing links no yes no no
Statistical weighting yes no no yes Syntactic analysis yes no no no
Lexical resources yes no no no Table 1. ....

-------------------------------------------------


http://www7.scu.edu.au/1938/com1938.htm
The Connectivity Server: fast access to linkage information on the Web

Ranking tools 
 -- Kleinberg's method for finding "Authoritative Sources In A
Hyperlinked Environment" [3], discussed further below.
 -- The Rankdex, a "Hyperlink search engine". 
 -- The PageRank system developed at Stanford, now part of the BackRub. 

-------------------------------------------------


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
Google
Beginnings

They developed the hypothesis that a search engine based on analysis
of the relationships between Web sites would produce improved results
over the basic techniques then in use. It was originally nicknamed
BackRub because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's
importance. (A small search engine called RankDex was already
exploring a similar strategy.)

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.robotwisdom.com/netlit/search.html
google.literate
Rankdex was an earlier variant on the Google approach, not currently available.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www8/data/2142/html/bindex.htm
Measuring index quality using random walks on the Web
Monika R. Henzinger*, Allan Heydon, Michael Mitzenmacher, Marc Najork
Compaq Computer Corporation Systems Research Center, 130 Lytton Ave.,
Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA

2.3. The PageRank measure
    A simple quality measure for a page is the number of pages that
reference a page, or its indegree; this was suggested in the context
of the Web by Carriere and Kazman [7] and was used by the Rankdex
search engine [17]. The basic assumption underlying this quality
measure is that a link from page p1 to page p2 means that the author
of p1 recommends p2 . The PageRank measure of a page suggested by
Brin, Page, and others [6, 8, 16] is a recursive variation of this
idea. The PageRank of a page depends not only on how many pages point
to it, but on the PageRank (i.e., quality) of these pages as well.
Thus, the PageRank of a page has the following intuitive properties:
the PageRank of a page is high if it is linked to by many pages with a
high PageRank, and a page with few links contributes more weight to
the pages it links to than a page with many links.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.robotwisdom.com/ai/timeline/1970.html
Timeline of knowledge-representation (part four, 1970-present)

1997: 22Apr: RankDex websearch uses anchortext [annc]

-------------------------------------------------


http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:7ot_8ZtUWh0J:www.llrx.com/extras/intlib.htm+rankdex+&hl=en
An interesting entry in the search engine field is a new demo site
called Rankdex. Rankdex provides you with search results ranked based
on how many sites link to the sites retrieved. The problem with
Rankdex is that the database is too small and isn't updated
frequently.

===


Searching for information about Hyperlink and Rankdex indicated that
it might be the search engine that the Google patent application was
referring to ? except that the name was definitely different.
Following the various references to Rankdex and Hyperlink I was able
to find information about its owner and inventor and found the
connection to Linkrank. The name was reversed. The real name was
RankLink.

RankLink was announced by Yanhong Li of the University of Buffalo on
October 7, 1996. He called it the Internet Rank Engine and gave the
URL as http://www.ranklink.com/rank/. On April 22, 1997 Yanhong Li
announced that RankLink was out of alpha testing and was renamed
Rankdex and relocated to URL http://rankdex.gari.com. (Note that in
July, 1996 Li posted a query to a discussion board ?Re: Patent on
Hypertext Indexing and Retrieval? ? ?wondering if any company is
interested in this kind of patent.?)

By 1998 Rankdex had disappeared. On July 23, 1998 Yanhong Li posted an
explanation that indicated that GARI Software, the prior host of
Rankdex, had been acquired by Dow Jones but was essentially abandoned.
IDD Information Services was the Dow Jones component that owned
Hyperlink/Rankdex. IDD was later acquired by SunGard Market Data
Services. It appears that the Rankdex technology developed by Yanhong
Li was not enhanced or used by these companies.

Yanhong Li went on to greater success in the search engine world. He
is the co-founder and CEO of Baidu.com, the high profile Chinese
search engine.

Below I?ve also included the results of my research on Linkrank.com.

I hope that the information I?ve found about the search engine
referred to by Larry Page in the Google Provisional Patent Application
is satisfactory. Please don?t hesitate to ask for clarification if any
of this is confusing.

Wishing you well for your project.

~ czh ~


=============================================
HYPERLINK AND RANKDEX AND RANKLINK (LINKRANK)
=============================================

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rankdex
Searched all groups      Results 1 - 37 of 37 for rankdex. 

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/idom/irlist/new/1996/96-xiii-40-327/New_Internet_Search_Engine.html
New Internet Search Engine 
From: Yanhong Li (yli@cs.Buffalo.EDU) 

I just put up a demo site for a new type of internet search engine,
which I call Internet Rank Engine. Unlike a regular search engine,
which tells you the most relevant web sites to your query, a rank
engine tells you the Most Popular, Best Quality web sites which are
relevant to your query. I am testing the effectiveness of this type of
engines, and I'd like to hear
comments from the IR community.

The web site is http://www.ranklink.com/rank, and comments can be sent
to yli@cs.buffalo.edu.

Yanhong Li
Internet Rank Engine
http://www.ranklink.com/rank/

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/idom/irlist/orig/1996/96-xiii-40-327
IRLIST Digest                               
ISSN 1064-6965
October 7, 1996
Volume XIII, Number 40
Issue 327
**********************************************************
  I. QUERIES
        1. New Internet Search Engine

-------------------------------------------------


http://groups.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.www.misc/msg/c019cc14f33c305e?rnum=25
Yanhong Li
Apr 22 1997, 12:00 am 
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.misc
From: y...@cs.buffalo.edu (Yanhong Li)
Date: 1997/04/22
Subject: a new search engine -- based on quality and popularity

The RankLink Internet Rank Engine is finally out of alpha testing and
have relocated from www.ranklink.com/rank to http://rankdex.gari.com.
Unlike an Internet search engine, a rank engine find you the Most
popular, Best Quality web sites relevant to your query.

-------------------------------------------------


http://groups.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.search/browse_thread/thread/a16f32297c172b70/c41c2b5c44cf29e1?lnk=st&q=rankdex&rnum=6#c41c2b5c44cf29e1
Yanhong Li	  Jul 23 1998, 11:00 pm   

>Also, what happened to Rankdex?  I've had to switch to Google, but I 
>really still don't trust its opaque ranking system.

Hi - 
I am the inventor of Rankdex, I left the company about a year ago, as 
far as I now, the Rankdex index was never updated since I left. GARI 
Software which hosted Rankdex is now part of Dow Jones, no one is
responsible for Rankdex anymore. Dow Jones may still own the patent,
if it is approved, but anything could happen.

If you are interested, a detailed technical paper on Rankdex was
recently published in IEEE Internet Computing, July/August issue, the
title of the paper is ?Towards a Qualitative Search Engine.?

If you do not have access to that Journal, I can send you electronic copies. 

-------------------------------------------------


http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=613280
Toward a Qualitative Search Engine
Full text: Publisher Site
Source: IEEE Internet Computing archive
Volume 2 ,  Issue 4  (July 1998) table of contents
Pages: 24 - 29   
Year of Publication: 1998 
ISSN:1089-7801 
Author: Yanhong Li
Publisher: IEEE Educational Activities Department   Piscataway, NJ, USA 

-------------------------------------------------


http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/people/filman/text/internet/searching-internet.pdf
Searching the Internet

BEYOND TEXT
In contrast to classical IR, Web documents are not just text. Internet
search engines can take advantage of the structure of the Web itself.
Li?s article, ?Toward a Qualitative Search Engine? (pp.
24-29),illustrates one such approach: searching the text of ?what
points to a page.? Over time, documents referred to by many other
sites get higher weights; the hyperlink text adds context to what
otherwise might be just a popularity contest with the whole world as a
critic.

***** Other researchers started referring to Yanhong Li?s article on
alternate ways of searching the Web.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.infomotions.com/serials/irld/irld-314.txt
Information Retrieval List Digest 314 (July 8, 1996)
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-314

IRLIST Digest                               
ISSN 1064-6965
July 8, 1996
Volume XIII, Number 27
Issue 314

I. QUERIES
I.1.
Fr: Yanhong Li <yli@cs.Buffalo.EDU>

Re: Patent on Hypertext Indexing and Retrieval

I have a pending patent on hypertext indexing and retrieval which
is fundamentally different from the traditional search engines
and is much better and faster. I am wondering if any company is
interested in this kind of patent.

Thanks
Yanhong Li
yli@cs.buffalo.edu


=============================================
HYPERLINK, RANKDEX, IDD, DOW JONES -- HISTORY
=============================================

http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2165421
Hyperlink Indexes Links
By Danny Sullivan, Editor
July 25, 1997

A unique search engine that indexes only hyperlink text debuted in
July and is operating as a demonstration site for the technology.
Hyperlink indexes hyperlink text, then associates the text with the
linked page.

Robin Li, the scientist behind the search engine, says that many
people do create descriptive site.

Hyperlink is not meant to be a competitor to the traditional search
engines. Instead, it's meant to be a demonstration site for the
technology. The index has information from over 5 million web pages in
it, and it's planned to be updated every two months.

However, IDD Information Services, the company behind Hyperlink, is
hoping to license its technology as an enhancement for those already
running search engines.

Hyperlink http://rankdex.gari.com

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb000703-1.htm
IDD Information Services Relaunched as Tradeline.com with New Products
and New Strategy

July 3, 2000 ? Under new ownership since January, IDD Information
Services, a former Dow Jones subsidiary, has renamed itself for its
leading database, Tradeline (http://www.tradeline.com), a collection
of historical stock market quotes and company data.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.tradeline.com/doclib/library/NA_Tech_booklet.doc
IDD News Agentâ System: Technical Background

"IDD" is derived from IDD Information Services, a former name of
Tradeline.com and SunGard Market Data Services.

SunGard Market Data Services is a market data aggregator, distributor,
and wholesaler for the financial services industry, providing market
data delivery solutions that serve a wide range of investment
applications.

Visit SunGard Market Data Services at www.marketdata.sungard.com.


============================
RANKLINK DOMAIN NAME HISTORY
============================

http://web.archive.org/web/*/ranklink.com
http://web.archive.org/web/19961230031218/http://ranklink.com/
Ranklink Technologies Inc. 

Our Exclusive Ranking of Where You Need To Be!
There are hundreds Internet search engines, there is only one Internet
Rank Engine!

If you have any questions, suggestions, please contact webmaster@ranklink.com. 

***** Used in 1996-1997. No links in 1998. Different owners or
available since 1999.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.whois.sc/ranklink.com
Listed for Sale: 	At Sedo with no price, Make Offer

http://www.whois.sc/linkrank.com
Whois History: 	15 records stored
Oldest:   2001-10-15
Newest: 2005-10-30


============================
ROBIN YANHONG LI ? BAIDU.COM
============================

http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-govmanage
http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-govBio&ID=138201
Baidu.com, Inc.
Management
Robin  Li 
Chief Executive Officer
Chairman

Prior to founding Baidu, Robin Li had accumulated extensive knowledge
and practical application experience in search engine technology
during his tenures in Dow Jones and Infoseek. Robin designed a
real-time information system that has been widely applied on many Wall
Street companies' websites, including the online version of the Wall
Street Journal. Robin invented and applied ESP technology to the
search engine of Inforseek. In 1998, Robin wrote a book titled Silicon
Valley Business War which shared his insights on the US technology
industry in the 1990's with particular attention to the development
and commercialization of Internet search.

In the end of 1999, Robin returned to China with a small amount of
venture capital and a big dream and co-founded Baidu.com, Inc. with
friend and partner Mr. Eric Xu.

Robin Li received a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science from
The State University of New York at Buffalo and a Bachelor of Science
Degree in Information Management from Peking University.

------------------------

http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-homeprofile
The Baidu Story

-------------------------------------------------


http://contracts.onecle.com/baidu/li.proxy.2004.08.09.shtml
Sample Business Contracts
Exhibit 99.9 TRANSLATION
 
Proxy Agreement 
 
This Proxy Agreement (the ?Agreement?) is entered into as of August 9,
2004 between the following two parties in Beijing.
 
Robin Yanhong Li: a citizen of People?s Republic of China (the ?PRC?) 
 
Eric Yong Xu: a citizen of PRC 
 
Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.: a wholly
foreign-owned enterprise registered in Beijing under the laws of PRC
(the ?Company?)
 
-------------------------------------------------


http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=BIDU
Profile: Baidu.com, Inc.

Baidu.com was founded by Robin Yanhong Li and Eric Yong Xu in 2000.
The company is headquartered in Beijing, the People?s Republic of
China.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-10-09-google-baidu_x.htm
10/9/2005
2 search engines, 2 different outcomes

In its short life as a public company, Google's value has mushroomed
to $87.4 billion, which is more valuable than Hewlett-Packard, Time
Warner, UPS, Dell, Home Depot or eBay, according to data from Capital
IQ. It's the main reason the USA TODAY Internet 50 e-Consumer 25 index
is up 8.1% this year.

Contrast that storybook debut with the rocky beginnings of Baidu
(BIDU), which many on Wall Street called the "Google of China." This
Chinese search engine rocketed 354% in its first day back in August.
But it's been a bloodbath since. Shares have lost about half their
value.
The oddly contrasting reactions to Google and Baidu highlight how
schizophrenic the stock market can be assigning value to newly public
companies in emerging industries.



=========================================
LINKRANK.COM ? HISTORY AND CURRENT STATUS
=========================================

http://linkrank.com/
Copyright © 2005, Name Administration Inc. 

-------------------------------------------------


http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=linkrank.com&type=domain
Domain Name: LINKRANK.COM
   Registrar: DOMAIN NAME SALES CORP.
   Whois Server: whois.domainnamesales.com
   Referral URL: http://www.domainnamesales.com
   Name Server: NS1.15X.NET
   Name Server: NS2.15X.NET
   Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
   Updated Date: 12-sep-2004
   Creation Date: 16-dec-2003
   Expiration Date: 16-dec-2006

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.domainnamesales.com/Whois.php?domain=linkrank.com
Whois information for: linkrank.com

Registrant:
 Name Administration Inc. (BVI)
 Box 10518 A.P.O.
 Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands B.W.I.
 KY

 Domain name: LINKRANK.COM

 Administrative Contact:
    Domain, Administrator  admin@nameadmininc.com
    Box 10518 A.P.O.
    Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands B.W.I.
    KY
    +1.345.946.6879
 Technical Contact:
    Domain, Administrator  admin@nameadmininc.com
    Box 10518 A.P.O.
    Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands B.W.I.
    KY
    +1.345.946.6879

 Registrar of Record: DomainNameSales
 Record last updated on 12-Sep-2004.
 Record expires on 16-Dec-2006.
 Record created on 16-Dec-2003.

 Domain servers in listed order:
    NS1.15X.NET   66.199.187.170
    NS2.15X.NET   66.199.187.171


Domain status: REGISTRAR-LOCK

-------------------------------------------------


http://nameadmininc.com/about.html
Corporate
Name Administration is a privately owned company based in the British
Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. Our core business is acquiring
and managing domain names for paid search (type-in traffic) and web
development purposes.

------------------------

http://nameadmininc.com/index.html
Name Administration Inc. (BVI) is an online media network that
operates thousands of generic domain names for paid search and
development purposes. You may not have heard of Name Administration
before, but you have probably visited one of our websites. Our master
catalog of properties includes a significant percentage of the Web's
most commercial, memorable and highly trafficked website names.

------------------------

http://blog.epistemographer.com/?p=186
Name Administration Inc. is a leading domain name administrator,
website developer and internet traffic syndicator. Name Administration
Inc. utilizes a portfolio of generic domain names, such as
antarctica.com, lipbalm.com, and others as stand alone websites which
collectively form an integrated advertising network offering users
relevant paid search advertisements and information. ?Factcheck.com?
was registered by Name Administration long before the U.S. vice
presidential debate for use in providing a directory of commercial
providers of information resources relevant to the generic term ?fact
check?.

-------------------------------------------------


http://web.archive.org/web/*/linkrank.com
http://web.archive.org/web/20040325005045/http://linkrank.com/
Robots.txt Retrieval Exclusion.
We're sorry, access to http://linkrank.com/search.php has been blocked
by the site owner via robots.txt.



===============
SEARCH STRATEGY
===============

ranklink.com
"ranklink.com"
"Yanhong Li"
wayback rankdex
"Toward a qualitative search engine"
rankdex.com
"the pagerank citation ranking"
backrub rankdex
backrub page rank
"Categorization by context"

Has anyone checked archive.org wayback machine yet?

We are the present owner of linkrank.com and use the name to provide
paid search services relating to the generic phrase "link rank" (as in
the ranking of links, related to search) It's clearly a catchy phrase
with alot of meaning to alot of people for many different reasons.  We
liked it because it was not inherently distinctive to any one thing.

The researcher tried to contact Name Administration Inc., I remember
because I screned the email.  I tried to reply but the researcher
forgot to include their contact email address when they filled in our
webform.

The waybackmachine doesn't go back far enough.  I would try the
archive whois service offered through www.whois.sc ..  it's a paid
service,  but quite good.  They should have the info you desire.
Alternatively you could contact someone from the first registrar to
hold this registration www.networksolutions.com.  Good luck.

czh-ga,

I can't speak for pander-ga, but *I* sure want to know what you came
up with.  Hope you have a chance to post it as an answer.

paf