ABSTRACT On Search in Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Systems

We consider the problem of information retrieval in a peerto-peer file sharing system. We assume that peers are unreliable, metadata are sparse, and queries are short. In light of this, the question becomes whether there exists a combination of metadata management and ranking techniques that can consistently improve query results. We try several alternatives, and, through analysis and simulation, show a combination that generally yields the best results. 1