Google unleashes Caffeine index tool

Google has launched a new indexing tool to build and maintain the company's flagship search engine.

Dubbed 'Caffeine,' the new service will aim to speed up the speed at which the massive Google search index refreshes itself.

Rather than look to index large portions of the web at a time, Caffeine will find smaller updates to individual pages and files and use that information to maintain the search index.

Google said that the new platform will allow it to perform searches 50 per cent faster and build larger indexes. The company estimates that the complete index requires 100 million gigabytes of storage with room for additional growth.

The company plans to use Caffeine as the basis for its future search services as it looks to speed the performance and improve accuracy for a growing archive of information.

"As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index," said Google software engineer Carrie Grimes in a company blog post.

"That means you can find fresher information than ever before, no matter when or where it was published."