Providing improvements in searching, identifying, and publishing information over computer networks, and on individual computers or other information access devices, by creating and sharing link relationships between documents distributed on the network, computers, or other devices. Further providing methods for billing for the use of link relationships to relate and search document objects. Methods for enabling users of a network to provide other users with access to link relationships between documents are described. In one example, this is accomplished by creating link directories for storing link relationships between documents and making the link relationships accessible to users. The users may populate the link directories with link relationships. Furthermore, the methods include a step of billing users based upon the link directories created and/or a step of billing users based upon the activity of users accessing the link directories.