1. A method for providing to a user a document result set based on a search inquiry, comprising: receiving a search request at a server device; forwarding the search request to a plurality of computer devices; receiving, from each computer device: a plurality of associated terms related to the search request; a virtual index value for each associated term; and a weighted relevance of each associated term determined by the each computer device; assigning a document weight factor for each computer device; assigning a separate document repository to each computer device of the plurality of computer devices; assigning a relative ranking of the each computer device according to information content (I) contained in the computer device, wherein the information content (I) of a computer device (k) is given by I=log(N k ), where N is the number of different words in a local index of computer device k; ranking terms received from the plurality of computer devices based on the document weight factor of each computer device; and providing to the user a ranked set of terms based on the ranking of the terms, wherein the virtual index is based on a 24-bit number scheme in which 24 different features of each word of a search query are checked.