Techniques for assigning ranks to nodes in a large linked database, such as world wide web or any other hypermedia database, partition the nodes so that the link matrix has a predominantly block-diagonal form. Within each block, a local rank is computed for nodes in the block, possibly by different computer...http://www.google.de/patents/US20050033742?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US20050033742 - Methods for ranking nodes in large directed graphs
