1. A method for preparing a system with a confidence based ranking algorithm, comprising: receiving at least one data record; determining a confidence value for each attribute value in each data record, wherein the determining comprises evaluating the accuracy of each attribute value; associating at least one confidence value with each attribute value for each data record; storing at least one attribute value and at least one associated confidence value for each data record; and creating a searchable data structure based on the attribute values and their associated confidence values.