Patent attributes
Techniques are provided to quickly process stored objects to generate an accurate estimate of the number of live objects that will be responsive to a client's filtering request defined at least in part based on a filtering parameter. Stored objects generated from user interactions with webpages are modified to simulate live objects and processed by a live object-intake simulator. The simulated results are then filtered using the filtering parameter to form a subset of matching objects. An estimate of the number of live objects produced by the filtering parameter is generated using at least the count of the objects in the subset. A confidence metric of the estimate is computed, in some cases using a statistical model. Under certain conditions, the estimate is delivered, the confidence metric is delivered, and/or live object intake based on the filtering parameter is initiated.
