The centralized nature of popular search engines has raised concerns about privacy, security, and censorship. Not to mention the long list of unsynthesized and sometimes irrelevant results that can waste users time. This has led to the development of decentralized search engines like Questron, powered by Acent blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, that may challenge Google and the value creation capabilities of conventional search engines. Learn more about this technology that will be launched soon!

TLDR: 

• Centralized search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing have been the default way of finding information online for over two decades.
• Primary concerns with centralized search engines include censorship, privacy, and disregarding user preferences.
• Decentralized AI search engines are emerging as a more democratic and efficient solution to address these concerns, with Questron being the first among them to challenge Google’s business model.
• Questron has six features as a decentralized AI, namely: decentralized nature, censorship-free, a decentralized governance system, privacy and anonymity, efficiency, and interoperability.
• Questron, as a decentralized search engine, will disrupt existing ad networks and online marketing.
• Questron search engine powered by artificial intelligence will become even more innovative with the integration of the Acent cryptocurrency ($ACE) in its services and incentives.

Centralized Search Engines and Some Concerns Over the Years

Centralized search engines have been the backbone of online search for over two decades. ‍Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines have become the default way of finding information on the internet.However, with the rise of decentralized search engines powered by artificial intelligence, the limitations of these search engines have become clearer for everyday web users.

One of the primary concerns with a traditional search engine is the censorship of information. These search engines have the power to control what information is displayed to users, which can be a serious concern when it comes to geopolitical or social issues. Google has allegedly censored search results in countries like Canada, India, China, Russia, and many others.

Another established concern is privacy. According to a report by Business Insider, as of 2018, Google held onto more than 90% of the search market share from web and mobile app searches. Imagine the volume of search histories and personal information that it gathers daily for marketing and advertising. This has led to concerns about the safety of consumer data, or “information trail” that customers leave behind as a result of their internet use and the lack of control therein.

With regard to user preferences, users have no democratic rights over the displayed search results. Ordinary people cannot also vote on the decision-making process of a conventional search engine company. For example, in 2018, 4,000 Google workers signed a petition saying that the company’s technology shouldn’t be used to advance autonomous warfare. But since Google is owned and decided by a powerful few, Google still helps the military through its advertising platform, even though the petition was successful. 

The combined power of Web 3.0 (hence called a “blockchain-based search engine) and AI technology can do so much to outperform an ordinary Google search by delivering personalized search results, and ensuring anonymous search and data privacy for the users.

The fight over the flow of information, the time spent browsing to get unbiased and accurate search results, and the control of information by centralized systems led to the development of a decentralized search engine.

Questron, the newest AI powered search engine developed Acent, is the first among them.

The Rise of Questron: A Decentralized AI Search Engine That Will Outperform Traditional Search Engines

Questron is a decentralized AI search engine developed by Acent Technology. It will replace the existing Liberty Search Engine of the Acent (formerly Osiris) Web 3.0 browser by adopting the machine learning capabilities of AI, the decentralized governance system, and the blockchain network of Acent.

Questron provides high-quality results by capitalizing on the following protocols being used in blockchain technology:

• decentralized nature;
• censorship free;
• decentralized governance system;
• privacy and anonymity;
• efficiency; and
• interoperability

Decentralized nature

The decentralized approach of Questron allows users to get information from various website owners, be they popular or non-popular web resources. This is in contrast to the selective search space that traditional search systems implement.

When a user encodes its search query, the search algorithms retrieve a list of relevant search results. A subsystem called Web crawlers retrieves those searches and generates the index. Web crawlers download and index content from websites across the internet to help search engines like Google understand what each website is about. 

However, it’s important to note that tech giants like Google can control their own crawlers and search engine optimization algorithms to prioritize certain content over others. Data integrity can be compromised in this type of scenario.

Hence, there is a growing cry for crawl neutrality in order to foster competition and innovation in the search engine industry. This is one major advantage of Questron as a decentralized AI search engine technology. The Questron search algorithm crawls many other search engines aside from Google-controlled web pages.

Censorship free

Censorship-free search engines like Questron are essential for a free and open society. In a world where information is frequently under the control of centralized authorities, these search engines give users access to information without worrying about manipulation or censorship.

Every day, web users seek answers on various search systems, oblivious to the fact that only Google-controlled web pages appear in their search results.

Decentralized AI search engines can help ensure a censorship-free search experience. In a peer-to-peer network such as YaCy FAROO, when a peer joins, its local search index is incorporated into the network’s mutual index. Therefore, when a user conducts a search, both the local and global indexes contribute to the search results.

Similarly, Questron independently crawls the Internet, analyzes it, and indexes the found web pages, locally and globally, including the deep web. The deep web refers to parts of the internet that are not easily accessible or commonly indexed using standard search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. These may include pay-walled sites, academic journals, email messages, private databases, and so on.

It is important to note that while some parts of the deep web may be perfectly legal and innocuous, other parts may be associated with illicit activities. In this context, it will be up to the Questron users to tag and vote for those illicit contents.

DAO Governance System

Conventional search engines have their own ranking factors that dictate which websites to display in index searches, with search engine optimization (SEO) being one of them.

In decentralized AI search engines like Questron, the ranking factors lie in the hands of the community. It allows users to rank the trustworthiness of each website. This gives them freedom by providing them more control over the content that is displayed. Such an ecosystem also ensures that a certain set of search engine results is not influenced by any central authority because it is instead based on user preferences.

This open, participatory, and collaborative approach instead of a single centralized model leads to safer and more ethical AI search engines. Decentralized AI search engines make this possible by organizing and providing incentives to organize a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). All members of the DAO can work together to improve the search algorithms and processes.

Privacy and Anonymity

Privacy and anonymity are crucial components of a decentralized AI search engine.

In Questron, the anonymity of data storage is preserved via the Acent Web 3.0 encryption technology to protect users’ privacy and prevent tracking of customer data. These systems allow users to transact securely without revealing their identities, making it harder for hackers to steal their data, digital assets, or trace their transactions. This would be most useful in data processing, banking services, the encoding of a private key, data mining, and others.

User searches are also stored inside the memory of their Questron account, which they can remove anytime they want. No company can claim ownership of a user’s data or gain access to their search history or other relevant information.

Overall, decentralized AI search engines offer a secure and censorship-free platform for users to browse the internet without compromising data safety.

Efficiency

Another advantage of an AI-powered search engine is its machine learning and natural language processing capabilities. A traditional search engine relies on keywords rather than the search intent of the idea. It may also take a while to index new information and unstructured data, according to its SEO. Thus, a Google search result, for instance, may not be a direct response to the search queries, so users have to skim for every piece of relevant content to find the needed answers. 

In Questron, when people search, the local search index joins with global search indexes to find the right keywords and contribute comprehensively to web search results. This is further refined by the AI’s natural language processing, a type of search algorithm that aims to understand the search intent, thus providing more accurate and personalized text or voice search results in seconds. 

Decentralized AI search engines like Questron can also provide deep-dive analysis and more up-to-date results since they use multiple networks and a decentralized internet.

Interoperability

Web3 search engines like Questron are designed to be more than just search engines. They are designed to be a part of a decentralized internet, which means they are more interoperable and can work with other decentralized applications and different languages.

This interoperability can lead to a more seamless online experience for mobile apps, where users can access information and applications without the need for centralized intermediaries. As a user enters the platform, he/she can query in his/her own language, thus providing a more democratic internet where users have more control over their data and online experiences.

How can blockchain-based search engines disrupt the existing ad network and online marketing?

Advertising is a way to reach a target audience by tracking their activities. But sometimes it can be really annoying to see ads that literally read your mind. You have just searched for something on the internet, and a list of related products pops up on your screen.

Currently, ad networks operate largely through tech firms and are managed by intermediaries (i.e., advertising companies), who earn the majority from these online and internet marketing efforts.

Fortunately, AI-powered, blockchain-based search engines have the potential to disrupt the existing ad network and internet marketing in several ways. First and foremost, they can eliminate intermediaries such as ad networks by allowing advertisers to directly connect with publishers through smart contracts on the blockchain. This would greatly reduce costs for both parties involved and increase transparency in the advertising process.

Secondly, AI-powered blockchain-based search engines could also implement a token-based reward system for users who choose to view ads, paying them to engage with advertising content.

Lastly, since blockchain technology is inherently secure and decentralized, it could help prevent fraudulent activities such as click fraud that are prevalent in traditional online advertising models.

Hence, in terms of internet marketing, Questron, powered by Acent blockchain technology, can:

• create scalable advertising networks that will benefit everyone while eliminating intermediary services;
• provide tokens as incentives for watching targeted ads, as mentioned above; and
• many more.

Conclusions and Future Directions

A powerful version of decentralized AI search engines like Questron is poised to disrupt the status quo. This will help create new industries by providing a more private, secure, and censorship-free way of searching the internet. These types of search engines use blockchain technology to create a decentralized network of nodes to search various search engines that work together to provide accurate and personalized search results. 

The ability of Questron to protect users’ privacy and digital assets by encrypting their log-in information and preventing the tracking of search history is one of the best services it provides.

As the internet becomes more decentralized, it is likely that we will see more AI search engines like Questron emerge in the search market. These search engines offer a glimpse into the future of online search, where users will have more control over their data and online experiences.

Questron AI search engine will become even more innovative with the integration of the Acent cryptocurrency ($ACE) in the following services and incentives: 

1. Payment for Questron Pro-Services;
2. Access to Questron Ads services;
3. Advertise in Questron through $ACE;
4. Incentives for AI-generated posts (Questron will be releasing content delivery features where people can post their AI generated content and get paid by Questron in $ACE);
5. Vote on the trust score of various websites via $ACE; and
6. Staking – The more $ACE users stake in Questron, the more $ACE revenue they are entitled to receive. 

Revenue from Questron will be shared between the Acent Core team and users with several views or subscribers.

There will be more exciting features to follow. So stay tuned for the launch of Questron!

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Your Earth DAO is the ideal form of an NFT-based open-source parallel reality for an immersive gamified web service experience built on the Acent blockchain.

It provides AAA-rated, high-performance architectural business environments capable of launching P2E games, meta-apps, meta-sites, and NFT assets, allowing users to monetize their creativity and land ownership. This initiative is being launched in a public webspace built with Unreal Engine 5 on a planet the size of the actual Earth.

Its current technology is geared toward producing a product similar to those depicted in the films Ready Player One and Freeguy.

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