Google expands search from 700 per cent more locations

With the expansion of its network Google search is now serving its users from 700 per cent more locations than a year ago, according to a new study PTI reports.

According to the report, the past 10 months have seen Google dramatically increase the number of sites around the world from which it serves client queries, as it redeployed existing infrastructure to change the way it conducted web searches, researchers from the University of Southern California (USC)  say.

From October 2012 to late July 2013, the number of locations serving Google's search infrastructure shot up from a little less than 200 to a little over 1,400, even as the number of ISPs increased from just over 100 to more than 850, the study found. Most of this expansion was about Google utilising client networks that it already relied on for hosting content like videos on YouTube, and their reuse to relay - and speed up - user requests and responses for search and ads, according to the researchers.

According to Matt Calder, lead author of the study, Google had been already delivering YouTube videos from within these client networks, but they had abruptly expanded the way they used the networks, turning their content-hosting infrastructure into a search infrastructure as well, he added.

Earlier, user submitted search requests would go to a Google data centre. Now, their search request first went to the regional network, which relayed it to the Google data centre.

''Data connections typically need to ''warm up'' to get to their top speed – the continuous connection between the client network and the Google data center eliminates some of that warming up lag time,'' the report said. ''In addition, content is split up into tiny packets to be sent over the internet – and some of the delay that you may experience is due to the occasional loss of some of those packets. By designating the client network as a middleman, lost packets can be spotted and replaced much more quickly.''

The company had already been using client networks, such as Time Warner Cable, for hosting some content (like videos on YouTube), but now it was using those same networks to relay and speed up search requests.

Venturebeat.com quoted, Ethan Katz-Bassett, an assistant professor at USC Viterbi, as saying delayed web responses led to decreased user engagement, fewer searches and lost revenue.

He added, Google's rapid expansion had tackled major causes of slow transfers head-on.