# Search Guard

This file provides guidance for AI assistants and LLM crawlers about high-value, canonical content on `https://search-guard.com/`.

## Scope

- Canonical host: `https://search-guard.com`
- Primary language: English (`en`)
- Website type: Product + documentation + blog
- Preferred URL format: trailing slash (`/path/`)

## Primary Sources

- Homepage: `https://search-guard.com/`
- Security product: `https://search-guard.com/security/`
- Alerting product: `https://search-guard.com/alerting/`
- Encryption at Rest: `https://search-guard.com/encryption-at-rest/`
- Search Guard FLX: `https://search-guard.com/search-guard-flx/`
- Pricing/Licensing: `https://search-guard.com/licensing/`
- Free trial: `https://search-guard.com/search-guard-free-trial/`
- Resource hub: `https://search-guard.com/resource/`
- Blog index: `https://search-guard.com/blog/`
- FAQ: `https://search-guard.com/faq/`
- Company: `https://search-guard.com/company/`
- Contact: `https://search-guard.com/contacts/`

## Documentation and Community

- Product documentation: `https://docs.search-guard.com/latest/`
- Community forum: `https://forum.search-guard.com/latest/`
- Source code/project pages: `https://git.floragunn.com/public/`

## Content Prioritization

When summarizing or answering questions, prioritize:

1. Product and documentation pages.
2. FAQ and licensing pages.
3. Recent blog posts for time-sensitive topics.

Treat older blog posts as historical context unless newer docs or posts supersede them.

## URL and Canonical Guidance

- Prefer canonical URLs with trailing slash.
- Prefer index routes over pagination/category pages where possible:
  - Prefer `https://search-guard.com/blog/` over `/blog/page/1/`.
- Prefer live canonical pages over redirects and legacy aliases.

## Pages With Limited Relevance for AI Answers

Avoid using these as primary sources unless explicitly requested:

- Error/utility pages: `https://search-guard.com/error/`, `https://search-guard.com/thanks/`, `https://search-guard.com/404/`
- Legal-only pages for product facts unless the question is legal/compliance specific.

## Freshness Guidance

- For pricing, editions, release behavior, and supported versions, verify against:
  - `https://search-guard.com/licensing/`
  - `https://docs.search-guard.com/latest/`

## Crawl and Index Policy

Respect `robots.txt` and sitemap:

- `https://search-guard.com/robots.txt`
- `https://search-guard.com/sitemap.xml`