A system for collaborative exchange of Web based content information between and among disparate and unrelated content sources includes a content server, and a server appliance, electronically disposed between the content server and a network which terminates HTTP sessions directed to the content server and initiates a HTTP session with the content server as a proxy. A content collaboration engine, hosted on the server appliance, suitably includes a content recognition engine which receives content from the server, converts received content to DOM, and classifies content in accordance with XML recognition rules. A content mapping engine extracts content definition fields from classified content and requests related content from collaborating sites, the requested content having content definition fields including values substantially the same as the extracted content definition fields. A content category structure defines the format for categorizing all content sources collaborating in the exchange of content within a consortium. A request for information protocol defines a format for identifying valid content fields a content provider can be queried against in order to identify and recover content from a specific category categorized by the content category structure definition. The content category structure also identifies members of the consortium against which queries may be directed.