YaCy is a free distributed search engine, built on principles of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.Its core is a computer program written in Java distributed on several hundred computers.Each YaCy-peer independently crawls through the Internet, analyzes and indexes found web pages, and stores indexing results in a common database (so called index) which is shared with other YaCy-peers using principles of P2P networks. It is a free search engine that everyone can use to build a search portal for their intranet and to help search the public internet clearly. 

Web Search Engine Software

YaCy is free software for your own search engine. Join a community of search engines or make your own search portal!

There are these three use cases you can choose from:

1. P2P Mode
Web Search by the people, for the people: decentralized, all users are equal, no central, no search request storage, shared index.

2. Your Search Portal
Your YaCy installation is independent from other peers. Define your own web index and starting your own web crawl.

3. Intranet Search
Create a search portal for your intranet or web pages or your (shared) file system.

System components

YaCy search engine is based on four elements:

1. Crawler
A search robot that traverses from web page to web page and analyzes their content.

2. Indexer
Creates a reverse word index (RWI) i.e. each word from the RWI has its list of relevant URLs and ranking information. Words are saved in form of word hashes.

3. Search and administration interface
Made as a web interface provided by a local HTTP servlet with servlet engine.

4. Data storage
Used to store the reverse word index database utilizing a distributed hash table.

Search-engine technology

• YaCy is a complete search appliance with user interface, index, administration and monitoring.
• Documents are then parsed, indexed and the search index is stored locally. 
• If your peer is part a peer network, then your local search index is also merged into the shared index for that network.

Specifications

Industry :

General