Baidu's Robin Li Filed RankDex in 1997, Cited as Prior Art in PageRank Patent
teortaxesTex · x · 2026-11-12
A viral bit of tech history: Robin Li filed the RankDex patent (US 5,920,859) in February 1997, using backlinks and anchor text for query relevance — predating Larry Page's PageRank patent (US 6,285,999), which explicitly cites IDD/RankDex work as prior art. Commenters note the algorithms differ (query relevance vs. recursive global link analysis) and that Baidu never converted this early technical edge into a product people love.
Related event: Robin Li's 1997 RankDex Patent Predates PageRank, Sparking Discussion(2 posts)→
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