INFO: an improving strategy for searching the small world networks

Many real-world network systems demonstrate the small world phenomenon. The applicability of these systems depends on efficient decentralized techniques to search and retrieve data. In this paper, we propose an INquiry-based FOrwarding (INFO) strategy to search the small world networks. When a node initiates a search with the INFO strategy, it first sends an inquiry message to all its neighbors. This message requires each neighbor to recommend a candidate node which is the closest node to the destination in its own neighborhood. After receiving the neighbors' replies, the source will pick the closest one to the destination among the candidates and forward the search task to that node. The INFO strategy can decide search directions more globally than the traditional neighborhood-based greedy strategy. Experiments show that this strategy can find a path with shorter length to reach the destination.