search engine project

Hi all

I should do a final project which is search engine with considering page ranking for a local university site

this program should be written in java and jsp
the database is in mysql and some one else has written it and he gave me some tables that index the content of pages

I know a bit java and jsp

the problem is that I don't know how to start the project and if the string to search should have any limitation on length

please help me and give me some idea to start
thx