A method of ranking a plurality of linked documents. The method comprises obtaining a plurality of documents, and determining a rank of each document. The rank of each document is generally a function of a rank of all other documents in the plurality of documents which point to the document and is determined by solving, by equation-solving methods (including Gauss-Seidel iteration and partitioning) of a set of equations wherein:.alpha..alpha..times..times..times..times. ##EQU00001## where x.sub.i is the rank of the page indexed by i, .alpha. is a number strictly between 0 and 1.0, the summation is over all indices j such that page j points to page i, and a.sub.ij is defined to be the reciprocal of the number of links pointing out from page j (denoted d.sub.j) if page j points to page i, and zero otherwise.