Patent ID: 8738801

Claim:
A method of updating index information in a distributed network, comprising: receiving, at a source node, a new or updated document for publishing in a structured overlay network; extracting a plurality of keywords from the document; generating a keyword update message for each of the plurality of keywords extracted from the document to define a plurality of keyword update messages; identifying, for each of the plurality of keywords extracted from the document, one or more nodes of a plurality of nodes in the structured overlay network for receiving each of the plurality of keywords; concatenating a first portion of the plurality of keyword update messages into a first composite keyword update message and a second portion of the plurality of keyword update messages into a second composite keyword update message, wherein the first composite keyword update message comprises a first one of the plurality of keyword update messages corresponding to a keyword stored by a first selected one of the plurality of nodes and the second one of the plurality of keyword update messages corresponding to a keyword stored by a second selected one of the plurality of nodes; forwarding the first composite keyword update message to the first selected one of the plurality of nodes in the structured overlay network; and forwarding the second composite update message to the second selected one of the plurality of nodes in the structured overlay network, the forwarding of the first composite update message and the second composite update message occuring substantially in parallel.