Abstract
Peer-to-peer networks receive great attention for file sharing and distribution in recent years. Searching for resources hosted on peers is a key component in p2p networks. However, the search performance of unstructured p2p systems is degraded due to excessive messages resulted from query flooding in the search phase. In this paper, we propose a searching scheme based on reputation systems to improve the search performance in peer-to-peer networks. A group-based architecture is configured and reputation scores are assigned for both peers and groups in our searching scheme. Peers and groups who provide more resources to others are rewarded with higher reputation scores and considered as better targets for searching. By properly defining the reputation score, searching in a p2p network can be more efficient and the performance of the network will be significantly improved. Simulation results show that the proposed reputation mechanism greatly improves the search performance in terms of reduction of messages in the network.