A social
purchasing, networking, and
ranking method and
system for linking consumers and merchants who share similar social values, personal values, and personal contacts or referrals. The present invention may allow both a
consumer and merchant to associate specific criteria such as personal values, religious faith, hobbies, interests, affiliations, political party, favorite charitable organization, social responsibility value, and the like with their respective profiles. A conventional
electronic network, or web, search by the
consumer launches a first
graphical user interface module wherein a
list of participating merchants is searched for keyword matches, and then ranked according to the preselected criteria such as the social values, personal referrals, and geographic location of the participating merchant. The present invention allows a user (
consumer) to guide their transactions and interactions toward merchants sharing similar values, interest, affiliations, and the like, to further rank merchants by personal
referral and
geographic proximity to the user. Additionally, the specific type and number of shared criteria may be graphically depicted to the consumer via at least one icon displayed in conjunction with the advertisements or other information displayed by each of the respective participating merchants.