QUERYING AND NAVIGATING CHANGES IN WEB REPOSITORIES

The present invention is a system for exploring changes to World Wide Web pages and Web structure or other repository that supports recursive document comparison. The user may explore the differences between documents with respect to two dates. Differences between documents are computed automatically and summarized in a new HTML page, and differences in link structure are shown via graphical representations. The present invention is the combination of two tools that complement one another. The AT & T Internet Difference Engine (AIDE) is a tool for tracking and viewing modification to World Wide Web pages, which has been extended to support recursive tracking of documents; Ciao is graphical navigator that allow users to query and browse structural connections embedded in a document repository. The union of these tools lets users get information on the evolution of documents of interest (both textually and graphically), browse the differences interactively, and dynamically modify the set of documents with which they interact.