Re: Security Search Engine

[Kelly Martin <kel () securityfocus com>]

Saqib,

Looks like you're using the new Google custom search tool. I think it's 
a good idea and useful. One suggestion: maybe you could include a link 
that lists the sites you've included, so people can see what's being 
indexed and suggest others as well? I like the vendor-neutral approach.

Someone's comment about certain vendors like Cisco having all their 
security documents on their website is a good point, but there may be a 
way to limit a search to just those areas (and not include marketing 
material). Although people looking for Cisco info will likely go 
directly to Cisco anyway, so it may not be needed.

We use an open-source search engine on SecurityFocus. Google does a 
great job with search overall, but one thing I noticed is that they 
don't index mailing list content very well. For that reason we also have 
a drop-down box on our search to limit searches to a specific list or 
area, like SEC-BASICS or BUGTRAQ or all 34 mailing lists. It's not 
always the most intuitive but sometimes a fine-grained approach works 
really well when you're looking for something specific.

Sometimes blogs have useful security info too, what are your thoughts on 
including some of those?

Best regards,
Kelly


Saqib Ali wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I am building a Search Engine exclusively for the Security and
> eSecurity Community using Google's Coop program.
>
> I would like to NOT include any vendor site but just index sites that
> are vendor neutral. Would this is be a good strategy or not?
>
> The URL for the search engine is
> http://www.xml-dev.com
>
> Any suggestion, or new URLs are welcome.
> Note: I won't include any security vendor website in the index for right 
> now.

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