Direct Hit Technologies Inc. offers a HotBot search engine aid that
trims the number of links produced by an inquiry to just the top 10
sites, based on which sites are clicked on when a similar request has
been made in the past. Each time a link is selected, it moves a little
bit higher on the list. Another ranking system, called Google, does
essentially the same thing, but in this case the Web sites are rated by
the number of other sites linked to them. The higher the number of
links, the higher ranking the site is accorded. (Business Week 28 Sep
98)