  Suffix tree construction algorithms based on suffix links are popular because
they are simple to implement, can operate online in linear time, and because
the suffix links are often convenient for pattern matching. We present an
approach using edge-oriented suffix links, which reduces the number of branch
lookup operations (known to be a bottleneck in construction time) with some
additional techniques to reduce construction cost. We discuss various effects
of our approach and compare it to previous techniques. An experimental
evaluation shows that we are able to reduce construction time to around half
that of the original algorithm, and about two thirds that of previously known
branch-reduced construction.
