MESSAGE MINING TO ENHANCE RANKING OF DOCUMENTS FOR RETRIEVAL

1 . A computer-implemented system that facilitates ranking of web pages, comprising:

a monitor component that monitors information of a message for reference to a web page; and

a ranking component that computes rank of the web page based in part on the message reference.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the message is one of an e-mail message and an instant message, and the reference the monitoring component identifies is an address to a web page.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the monitor component analyzes message header information and message content.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the monitor component extracts information related to relevancy and popularity of the web page.

5 . The system of claim 4 , wherein the popularity of the web page is utilized by a machine learning system to affect the rank of the page.

6 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a selection component that selects messages based on at least one of message source information, message destination information, output of a spam filter, and sender presence on a safe sender list.

7 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a tracking component that tracks frequency information related to how often the web page reference is forwarded.

8 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a tracking component that tracks click-through information related to how often the web page reference is selected.

9 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising an advertising component that modifies value set for an advertisement based in part on user interaction with the message having the reference.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the advertisement is displayed as part of the web page associated with the reference.

11 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a profile component that generates a profile of a network based on user interaction with the message.

12 . A computer-implemented method of ranking web pages, comprising:

monitoring at least one of e-mail and IM messages having web page reference information contained therein;

tracking frequency at which the messages are forwarded based on the web page reference information; and

ranking of the web page reference information as a function of the frequency of at which the e-mail messages are forwarded.

13 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising tracking click-through rate of the web page reference information within the respective messages.

14 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising re-ranking the web page reference information based on change in frequency at which the e-mail messages are forwarded.

15 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising analyzing the reference information for key information, and performing ranking based additionally thereon.

16 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising;

determining user information associated with the messages; and

identifying a user related to the user information as a priority source of the e-mail messages.

17 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising analyzing an attachment of the e-mail message for web page reference information.

18 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising processing the web page reference information of one or more of the e-mail messages to infer intent of a user associated with the one or more of the e-mail messages.

19 . A computer-executable system of ranking web information, comprising:

computer-implemented means for selecting e-mail messages having embedded network document linking information;

computer-implemented means for tracking user interaction with the network document linking information; and

computer-implemented means for ranking a web page based on user interaction data related to the user interaction with the network document linking information.

20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the network document linking information automatically routes the user to a corresponding network document when the user interaction is a selection action.