May 27, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Just an idea if you are looking to add another dimension to the site. Whenever we do a Google search on a SQL Server topic or question, we are always faced with weeding out the same garbage sites and sites that require registration and/or fees. Experienced SQL professionals start building up an internal set of more trusted sites and quality newsgroups, etc. We learn how to ignore the noise, but that learning process does not come free.
What if SQLServerCentral did something like implement the ability of SharePoint Server to index external content? Quality SQL Sites, SQL Blogs, MSDN, MS newsgroups, etc., could all be indexed and crawled on a scheduled basis. It could become the SQL-specific Google.
Then, instead of using Google to search the entire internet and all of its garbage, we could come to SSC and search a more narrow, higher quality slice of it. We'd still have the option to go to google if we don't find it here. You might also have a method to allow for users to recommend sites to add to the crawl. You might even go so far as crawl the sites that some of your top (and trusted) sites link to. For example, if SQLSkills.com links to someone's blog, then their blog is a likely candidate to add to the SSC index crawl.
There might be other features that you could implement as well, such as Best Bet type indicators, or rankings by users.
Just a thought. Something I was thinking would be cool to do.
May 27, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Interesting idea, though search is a hard thing to solve. We have our own issues here, but I understand what you're asking.
Part of the difficulty that I see is determining the domain. How do I decide that sQL Skills blog is worth indexing, but that NULLgarity's blog is not. I could see us spending a lot of time just trying to determine what is even worth indexing.
It's a nice topic, just not sure I can ultimately do it better than Bing/Google. If I don't index enough, why use my search?
May 28, 2010 at 3:25 pm
I guess I see determining the domains as an extension of what is already done with Database Weekly. There you are deciding what is and what is not worth passing along to your readers. It is a great service. It saves a lot of people the effort of trying to keep up with everything all of the time. To a large extent, you know what is good and what is not (which is why NULLgarity's blog isn't included :-D).
I am not aware of any way that I could run a search on just the following domains:
- SSC
- MS forums
- ServerFault
- SQLSkills.com
- BrentOzar.com
- sqlblog.com
- msdn/technet/etc.
- name your favorite SQL site here
- other obvious examples that I have left out
Just indexing that content in a single search engine would be extremely useful to me. Add other things gradually, maybe as voted on by the community.
If such a search engine existed, it would be the first place I went to search for SQL information (perhaps even before BOL since it would include BOL). Next stop might be BOL or Google. Then, if I found something good via Google, I could nominate it for inclusion on the SSC search engine.
As far as doing it better than Google... I would consider what you would do to be something different. You would be building a searchable directory of trusted SQL-related sites. SSC has the experience and credibility to do that, especially if the SSC community was involved in determining what to include. Something generic could never achieve that same level of trust.
May 28, 2010 at 8:07 pm
NULLgarity (5/28/2010)
...I am not aware of any way that I could run a search on just the following domains:- SSC
- MS forums
- ServerFault
- SQLSkills.com
- BrentOzar.com
- sqlblog.com
- msdn/technet/etc.
- name your favorite SQL site here
- other obvious examples that I have left out
...
Try this: go to Google and enter:
site:www.sqlservercentral.com {search-words}
Works for me ...
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