The search computing project (SeCo), funded by the European Research Council as an advanced IDEAS grant, aims at building concepts, algorithms, tools, and technologies to support complex Web queries. The project is now entering the fourth of five year lifespan (Nov. 2008-Nov. 2013); it proposes a new paradigm for solving complex queries based on combining data extraction from distinct sources and data integration by means of specialized integration engines. Data extraction retrieves data from different sources, ordered based on local rankings, and data integration merges such results into result combinations, with an associated global ranking, such that combinations with the highest ranking are produced as fast as possible; a result combination represents the solution of a complex search problem. Thus, the search computing project has the ambitious goal of lowering the technological barrier required for building complex search applications, thereby enabling the development of many new applications which will cover relevant search needs.