Systems and methods for highlighting search results

1. A method performed by a client device for highlighting search terms in web documents distributed over a network, comprising:

generating a search query including a search term;

receiving a list of one or more links to web documents distributed over the network in response to the search query;

receiving selection of one of the links;

retrieving a web document corresponding to the selected link from the network;

intercepting the web document; and

highlighting one or more occurrences of the search term in the intercepted web document.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the highlighting includes:

automatically searching the intercepted web document to locate each occurrence of the search term, and

for each occurrence of the search term, changing a characteristic of the search term in the intercepted web document.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the changing includes:

changing at least one of a color, font, style, effect, and size of the search term in the intercepted web document.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

providing the intercepted web document with the highlighted search term to a user.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generating includes:

sending the search query to one of a search engine and a web directory to obtain the list of one or more links.

6. A system for highlighting search terms in documents remotely distributed over a network to aid in the determination of relevance of the documents, comprising:

means for generating a search query including one or more search terms;

means for receiving a list of one or more references to documents in the network in response to the search query;

means for highlighting one or more occurrences of the one or more search terms in the list of one or more references;

means for receiving selection of one of the one or more references;

means for retrieving a document corresponding to the selected reference; and

means for highlighting the one or more search terms in the retrieved document.

7. A client device that highlights search terms in web documents remotely distributed over a network to aid in the determination of relevance of the web documents, comprising:

a memory configured to store instructions; and

a processor configured to execute the instructions in the memory to receive a search query that includes one or more search terms, obtain a list of one or more links to web documents distributed over the network using the search query, obtain selection of one of the links, download a web document corresponding to the selected link from the network, intercept the web document, and highlight the one or more search terms in the intercepted web document.

8. A browser assistant that interacts with a browser on a client device, comprising:

instructions for generating a search query including a search term;

instructions for obtaining a list of one or more links to web documents distributed over the Internet using the search query;

instructions for obtaining selection of one of the links;

instructions for retrieving a web document corresponding to the selected link from the Internet;

instructions for intercepting the web document; and

instructions for highlighting the search term in the intercepted web document.

9. A computer-readable medium that stores instructions executable by at least one processor, comprising:

a browser configured to generate a search query that includes a search term, receive a list of one or more references to documents distributed over a network in response to the search query, receive selection of one or more of the references, and retrieve one or more documents corresponding to the selected one or more references; and

a browser assistant configured to intercept the one or more documents, highlight the search term in the one or more documents, and present the one or more documents, with the highlighted search term, to a user.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein when highlighting, the browser assistant is configured to identify the search term in the one or more documents and, for each occurrence of the search term in the one or more documents, change a characteristic of the search term.

11. A web browser stored on a computer-readable medium, comprising:

instructions for obtaining a search term;

instructions for generating a search query from the search term;

instructions for obtaining a list of references to documents distributed over a network using the search query, the references including links to the documents and textual descriptions of the links;

instructions for highlighting occurrences of the search term in the list of references;

instructions for retrieving a document corresponding to one of the references;

instructions for highlighting each occurrence of the search term in the retrieved document; and

instructions for displaying the highlighted document to a user.