34. A machine-readable program storage medium, the program storage medium tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a machine to perform method steps for representing a portion of the World Wide Web, the method steps 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 user-provided search criteria, the results including a plurality of World Wide Web documents, wherein the plurality of World Wide Web documents are referenced by a plurality of hypertext links; automatically refining said results of the first search based on relevance of each of the World Wide Web documents to the user-provided search criteria by performing a second search including content examination of said results; ranking the plurality of World Wide Web documents based on results of said refining; generating a map of the plurality of World Wide Web documents based on the ranking, wherein each of the World Wide Web documents is represented by one of a plurality of objects; and causing the map to be displayed on the display device, the map having a three-dimensional appearance such that the ranking is indicated by the relative positioning on the display device at the objects in three dimensions, said step of causing the map to be displayed including causing the links to be represented on the display device at connections between the objects, such that a visual attribute of one of the connections indicates a degree of relevance to the user-specified search criteria of a corresponding one of the World Wide Web documents.
42. A machine-readable program storage medium according to claim 34, wherein the method steps further comprise the steps of: retrieving a Web document specified by one of the hypertext links; and causing the Web document specified by said one of the hypertext links to be displayed on the display device.