Each page within the database has a number of attributes attached to it. These attributes record the page's many categories, how the user tends to use the page, and where the page's icon fits in a space of page icons.

Here are some example attributes:

Attributes associated with the page's category:

what type of page it is---text, image, audio, video, webpage, executable, composite page, a page cluster, and so on,
how big it is,
when it was created, downloaded, or saved,
whether another page within the database points to it,
what other pages or types of pages are associated with this page in content, structure, type, or date,
if it's an executable page, when last it was executed and what page it was executed on,
if it's a webpage, whether it points to other pages within the database and if so, which pages it points to,
if it's a composite page, whether it contains images, and if so, how big they are, and how many there are,
if it's a text page, what proper names it contains, if any, what email addresses, http references, phone numbers, and so on,
if it's a text page, what title it has, if any, and what its word distribution is.

Attributes associated with the user's use of the page:

the name of the page, whether assigned by the user or generated by the system,
any comments the user has attached to the page,
any page clusters the user puts the page in,
how often the user has looked at it, and for how long,
how often its been used in searches,
what other pages or types of pages the user examines at around the same time as this page,
whether it was created by the user, saved by the user, fetched by the system, or saved by some other program (and if so, which program),
what program last accessed it, and when,
how often it's been printed, and when (if ever),
if it has been mailed, or faxed, or posted, and if so, to whom, and when,
if it was edited or otherwise altered, when last it was altered and by which program, and where its earlier versions are,
how much it has changed since it was last altered, if ever.

Attributes associated with the page's icon on the screen:

What its icon looks like (color, appearance, transparency, z-order, blink rate, associated animations, and so on), and any associated page selection sounds,
where its icon is normally located on the screen,
whether the user has ever moved its icon around on the screen, and if so, when and to where,
what other icons are close to its icon on the screen.

Attributes of the attributes of a page:

how many attributes a page has attached to it,
a list of the attributes attached to a page,
which attributes are more important than which other attributes in different situations,
which of the attributes are multi-valued (like the list of pages that point to a page), which are single-valued (like the page's size), which are continuous (the time the page was created), and which are discrete (the number of words on the page).

There could be tens of thousands of pages for larger databases, and some of those pages might have hundreds of attributes, each of which may have dozens of values. The sheer size of the database alone is a major issue. The problem is further compounded by the dynamism and non-uniformity of the database:

Any two pages could differ in the set of attributes attached to them (for example, an executable and a text page might have little in common).
An attribute attached to a particular page might have its own set of values that are not shared with the same attribute of another page (for example, two webpages will likely point to two totally different sets of other webpages).
At any time the system could add new attributes to any page (for example, a new attribute might be that the page was just used in a search).
At any time the system could add new pages (with entirely new attributes).