About the SEO project
A distributed system
This biologically inspired project is designed to provide expert guidance to the locations of valuable information relating to the search engine optimization of a web site.
Although it appears to be a simple database driven system, it is something quite different. It is a collaborative system based upon information sharing strategies found in the insect world. There is no database. Inputs and outputs are spread across many Web sites.
Figure 1- A distributed, virtual system
The information comes from many different experts who have discovered useful sources of information on the Web and have created agents to pass this information on to others. Access to these agents is via associate websites, each of which controls an independent portal into the distributed system (see figure 2).
Figure 2 - An associate's portal
The "kempelen box" enables visitors to a site to interact with particular information carrying agents selected by the associate. A metaphor for this interface is shown in figure 3.
Figure 3 - Kempelen box metaphor
Although each associate website provides facilities for visitors to create and modify their own information carrying agents, the associate website is not limited to the agents created on their own site.
Every information carrying agent is sent to a central pool of agents, from where it can be cloned to appear in the Kempelen box of any associate site (see figure 4).
Figure 4 - How agent's are created
In this way, associates can choose to include in their Kempelen boxes any of the information carrying agents - wherever they have been created in the system. This is illustrated in figure 5.
Figure 5 - Agents are selected from a central pool
A collaborative system, of sharing information carrying agents, removes the need for any single site to attract all of its own agents. In this way, information gathered at many places on the Web can be shared by all.
Each associate website can maintain a unique identity through the selection of appropriate agents. Agents carrying information complementary to the associate's main line of business can be selected, while agents carrying irrelevant or competitive information can be excluded.
Creating a customized Kempelen box involves nothing more than selecting suitable agents from the pool. Updating a Kempelen box involves nothing more than replacing or removing agents (see figure 6).
Figure 6 - Kempelen boxes are updated by replacing the agents
More information on this project, technical details and information relating to the theory behind stigmergic systems can be accessed from the side panel and the menubar at the top of this page.