A method and search engine for classifying a source publishing a document
on a portion of a network, includes steps of electronically receiving a
document, based on the document, determining a source which published the
document, and assigning a code to the document based on whether data
associated with the document published by the source matches with data
contained in a database. An intelligent geographic- and business
topic-specific resource discovery system facilitates local commerce on
the World-Wide Web and also reduces search time by accurately isolating
information for end-users. Distinguishing and classifying business pages
on the Web by business categories using Standard Industrial
Classification (SIC) codes is achieved through an automatic iterative
process.