SearchDotNet.com -- Custom Search Engine for Software Developers Using the Microsoft .NET Framework

April 24, 2007; 02:50 AM
SearchDotNet.com is a new site launched by bestselling author Dan Appleman to provide high quality search to software developers targeting the Microsoft .NET Framework. Using Google's Custom Search Engine technology, SearchDotNet.com addresses several key problems faced by most software developers.

Many technical search terms apply to multiple technologies. For example, if you search for the term "RSS" on a full search engine you will get a broad set of results including the definition of RSS and popular RSS feeds. On SearchDotNet.com, you will see results specific to software development, including technical articles by the Microsoft developers who implemented Microsoft's own RSS engine for Vista.

Finding truly authoritative answers can be difficult -- sites by experts may not have a high page ranking on a main search engine. On SearchDotNet.com, blogs and sites by members of the Microsoft's developer team, Microsoft MVP's, and well known authors and speakers are tagged for their expertise. Search results can be filtered to only show expert sites, making it easy to find high quality answers.

The spread of aggregator and troll sites (that republish content) often leads to numerous duplicate search results -- where the same content appears on multiple web sites. Every site included on SearchDotNet.com, whether it is an expert's blog, a discussion forum, or a general web site, is hand-picked for relevance and presence of original content. As a result the amount of noise and number of duplicate results is dramatically reduced.

SearchDotNet.com includes additional features for .NET software developers. Developers can download Gadgets for integrating SearchDotNet searches onto a Google Homepage, Google Desktop or any blog or website. Through support of OpenSearch standards, developers can add SearchDotNet as a preferred search engine for Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer 7. A distinct Custom Search Engine is available for .NET related software components, tools and open source projects. Finally, SearchDotNet offers an Amazon A-Store featuring recommended .NET book titles.

SearchDotNet.com represents a new paradigm for .NET software developers to learn new technologies and discover existing solutions to problems. The combination of knowledge domain specific search engines along with book recommendations will make it a first stop resource for the many developers who rely on search in their daily work.