1. An image search server that supports thesaurus-based context searching of images on a plurality of web servers, the image search server adapted to be communicatively coupled to a plurality of client devices that initiate one or more searches, the search server comprising: a first portion of a search engine for searching image data contents stored in storage that is associated with the server, the searching occurring in response to the image search server receiving an original search string provided by a client device input; a context manager configured to select between a thesaurus-based approach and dictionary-based approach based on content of the original search string, wherein the thesaurus-based context approach is selected if the user enters a complex multi-word original search string, otherwise a dictionary based context approach is used for simpler original search string entries; generate an augmented search string from the original search string and one or more user's responses to search queries in response to selecting the thesaurus-based approach, and generate an augmented search string based on a dictionary meaning of the original search string in response to selecting the dictionary-based approach; a second portion of the image search engine that performs image search operations using the augmented search string to obtain more relevant image search results from image databases; a third portion of the image search engine that delivers the more relevant image search results to the user via a server output circuit.
1. An image search server that supports thesaurus-based context searching of images on a plurality of web servers, the image search server adapted to be communicatively coupled to a plurality of client devices that initiate one or more searches, the search server comprising: a first portion of a search engine for searching image data contents stored in storage that is associated with the server, the searching occurring in response to the image search server receiving an original search string provided by a client device input; a context manager configured to select between a thesaurus-based approach and dictionary-based approach based on content of the original search string, wherein the thesaurus-based context approach is selected if the user enters a complex multi-word original search string, otherwise a dictionary based context approach is used for simpler original search string entries; generate an augmented search string from the original search string and one or more user's responses to search queries in response to selecting the thesaurus-based approach, and generate an augmented search string based on a dictionary meaning of the original search string in response to selecting the dictionary-based approach; a second portion of the image search engine that performs image search operations using the augmented search string to obtain more relevant image search results from image databases; a third portion of the image search engine that delivers the more relevant image search results to the user via a server output circuit. 2. The image search server of claim 1 wherein the image search server periodically processes image data over the Internet for inclusion in a thesaurus data structure that can then be used by the image search server when performing image searching using a thesaurus-based approach.