Google Blog Search | 14/09/05 - 23.23 |
Google launch a Blog Search they announce on their blog, and Blogger report on theirs. This has been drawn together with an update to Blogger.com (as Adam points out) which brings a scroller of the most recently updated blogs and “Blogs of Note”.
When users sign in they also get a bright blue box to greet them on the Dashboard. This is rather against the general Blogger theme of subtle fading browns, and I have to say I think it looks terribly ugly. A “Search All Blogs” link has also been added to the bar that goes at the top of Blogger Blogs. This joins the “Search this Blog” which used to use a Google Site Search to find posts on your blog. I think it was largely useless, as most peoples’ blogs weren’t indexed on Google. However this link has now changed to a Google Blog Site Search using the parameter blogurl:yourblog.com within your search terms. Obviously this is omitted for the “Search All Blogs” option. [As a side note this bar across the top of your Blogger blog is removable contrary to what many Blogger users may believe. Simply select "None" on the template page*. The downside: you don't get people clicking "Next Blog >>" ending up at our place.]
I notice however that the integration of this new service hasn’t been perfect. For instance, normally searching on Google for a news item alerts you to recents goings on on Google News, or to relevant books on Google Print. But searching for Blogs about Skiing doesn’t say: “Why not try our juicy new Blog Search?”. It would clearly better if it did.
Search Engine Watch (I’ll review that site itself some day) reports about the launch of the Blog Search including how to make sure your blog is included.
I also notice that Gmail has earned a place on the bottom of the Google Services page. I imagine this was added when it went live a few weeks ago.
//Update: This blog is not very well indexed by the new search engine. Blogger only has the records from the days it was hosted on BlogSpot so most of the posts on the blog are not findable by the search. But, however, Google say it searched for all blogs, whether they are hosted by Google on not. So maybe see increased coverage soon.
*Terms and Conditions Apply. See comments.
You can only select “none” for the Blogger NavBar if you’re publishing via FTP; if you’re hosted at BlogSpot, you have to carry the bar.
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