18. In a computer system including a processor and a display device coupled to the processor, a method of representing a plurality of hypertext documents, the method comprising the steps of: receiving results of a first search of data distributed among a plurality of computers on a network, the results corresponding to a set of user-provided search criteria, the results including a plurality of hypertext documents; automatically refining said results of the first search based on relevance of each of the hypertext documents to the set of user-provided search criteria by performing a second search including a content examination of said results; ranking the plurality of hypertext documents based on a degree of relevance of each of the hypertext documents to the set of the user-specified search criteria; generating a map of the plurality of said hypertext documents based on the ranking, wherein each of the hypertext documents is represented on the display device as one of a plurality of objects; and causing the map to be displayed on the display device, wherein the map has a three-dimensional appearance indicative of the ranking, such that the ranking is indicated by the apparent relative positioning of the objects in three dimensions.
19. A method according to claim 18, wherein the plurality of hypertext documents are referenced by a plurality of links, and wherein the method steps further comprise the steps of: retrieving a hypertext document specified by one of the links; and causing the hypertext document specified by said one of the links to be displayed on the display device.