SEC Plans Upgrade to Document Service

The Securities and Exchange Commission hopes next month to unveil improvements to its Web site and introduce a search engine for its electronic document disclosure system, an official said.

“Everything will be easier to find,” said Susan Wyderko, who heads the agency’s investor education effort.

The search capacity for company filings on the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval System, known as Edgar, will be upgraded, Wyderko said. Edgar contains electronic versions of corporate filings such as 10-Ks and proxy statements that public companies are required to file.

The agency’s Web site, which carries proposed rules, news releases and court actions, also will have improved search capabilities as well as a new look, she said.

The site will upload more quickly for people without high-speed phone lines, Wyderko said. It will continue to be accessible to blind users who have special “readers.”

“I’m not interested in being the most graphically sophisticated cutting-edge site, I’m interested in communicating information,” Wyderko said.

The agency hopes to complete the upgrade by late February. The site and the Edgar database can be found at https://www.sec.gov.

Traffic to the site peaked in January 2000 with 515,000 unique visitors--that is, users who visited the site once. The site had 198,000 unique visitors in December.