Google has expanded its network of search engine server sites by 700%, according to new research.
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) revealed that between October last year and July, Google significantly increased the number of its server sites to 1,400 from about 200, while the number of internet service providers rose from about 100 to more than 850.
Study author and USC PhD student Matt Calder said that the search giant has already delivered YouTube videos from within these client networks.
"But they’ve abruptly expanded the way they use the networks, turning their content-hosting infrastructure into a search infrastructure as well," Calder said.
According to the research, currently a search request goes to a regional network, which then sends it to the Google data centre, rather than the earlier process of sending a search request directly to a Google data centre.
The university team created a new process to track and map servers, detecting both when they are in the same data centre and anticipating the location of data centre, while they would also identify the connections between servers and clients.
USC Viterbi assistant professor Katz-Bassett said that delayed web responses lead to decreased user engagement, fewer searches, and lost revenue.
"Google’s rapid expansion tackles major causes of slow transfers head-on," Bassett said.
According to the team, the scheme would benefit web users, ISPs and Google with a better web browsing experience, lower operational costs and rapid delivery of content to web users respectively.
