Are Blog Search Services Less Relevant Than Traditional Search

August 20, 2008 · Comments

searching Very interesting results blogged by Mukund Mohan about blog search relevance. He did a search in several notable blog search tools for “chris brogan” minus the quotes, and found less-than-stellar results. In the comments, you’ll see that I incorrectly recreated his search and did a little better, but it was still interesting to note.

Further, I feel that Google search, regular google versus their blog search, has really stepped up lately. I’ve been using that to find old posts when someone asks me for information. Yahoo and Ask aren’t so bad either.

So this is a shift from what I often advise people, with regards to finding relevant blogs. Should I be recommending straight up Google instead of the search tools? I’m starting to think so.

What’s your take?

photo credit, reedbiotch

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  • I've actually had a fairly difficult time through Google's blog search. Most other methods, I have found, work better.
  • It seems like with Google the key is to refine your keywords to eliminate junk. But once you do that, you can get the RSS feed and monitor it like a hawk.
  • I'll say this - you did a better search than Mukund did when you decided to include quotes (depending on the search engine - some don't use quotes for phrase searches).

    Always good to know basic search skills before writing an article on search!
  • I don't use blog search anymore, its not authoritative when compared to a search engine especially Google since they don't appear to treat blogs differently anymore and they index in minutes what used to take days or hours unless you were a huge site.

    Let us not forget blog search engines only appeared because we needed a search engine that spidered more often once Google fixed that problem, they largely became irrelevant verticals.
  • Lisa
    A side note, Ask uses Google search results. Just learned that in an online advertising class!
  • David
    I dont think 90% (or 99% in fact) of the users searching will include quotes.
    The traffic from google blogsearch to google search to find blogs is several orders of magnitude lesser.

    Most users trying to find your blog (if they know your name) are searching on Google not on blog search engines. Blog search engines are primarily used by other bloggers. If you are trying to get organic traffic from search you are better off writing thoughtful pieces on specific topics. If however you are looking to get topical traffic from other bloggers looking for the latest, you are better off posting more frequently on the "topic of the day".
  • On your last comment, Mukund, I wonder if bloggers are using blog search engines or if people who remember search engines before Google made its mark are.
  • Mukund - right you are - in fact, it's 98% (that's what it was last year from Google, anyway). But if they did that simple little thing, their search results would improve dramatically.

    On your last thought - not sure I agree with the topical traffic part. If you post frequently on the topic of the day, but post less than stellar info, I'm thinking the traffic you get will lead to comments and posts saying negative things about your original post. Although you might get good traffic that day, the next it would drop - because other bloggers would have decided your blog wasn't worth reading, and so moved on.

    So I think your "thoughtful pieces" applies in both scenarios. Especially since Google's main search that everyone uses WILL find you.
  • Is there any benefit to searching within blog directories as opposed to standard search engines?

    www.charitynetusa.com/blog
  • mm... bookmarked ))
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