Routing Queries through a Peer-to-Peer InfoBeacons Network Using Information Retrieval Techniques

In the InfoBeacons system, a peer-to-peer network of beacons cooperates to route queries to the best information sources. Many internet sources are unwilling to provide more cooperation than simple searching to aid in the query routing.We adapt techniques from information retrieval to deal with this lack of cooperation. In particular, beacons determine how to route queries based on information cached from sources’ responses to queries. In this paper, we examine alternative architectures for routing queries between beacons and to data sources. We also examine how to improve the routing by probing sources in an informed way to learn about their content. Results of experiments using a beacon network to search 2,500 information sources demonstrates the effectiveness of our system; for example, our techniques require contacting up to 71 percent fewer sources than existing peer-to-peer random walk techniques.