WEB BROWSER ACCESSIBLE SEARCH ENGINE THAT IDENTIFIES SEARCH RESULT MAXIMA THROUGH USER SEARCH FLOW AND RESULT CONTENT COMPARISON

An Internet infrastructure contains a search server that delivers search result pages of web sites to client devices based upon a search string. Maxima categories are provided that sort search results or web pages based upon popularity and/or context similarity. A web browser contained within a client device is coupled to display various search result pages of web sites delivered by the search server. A maxima determination module within the search server responds to the delivery of the initial search string by first categorizing search results applicability to the search string on the basis of maxima or by generating maxima categories with search results contained therein that correlated to the search string. These search results within each applicable maximum are then sorting on the basis of popularity within each of the maxima categories to effectuate popularity ranks for each search result or web page. User interaction with search results are monitored to better select search maxima and popularity ranks for subsequent search result requests for this search string, whereby the desirability of search results provided to the user improves over time.