Blog Search Engines Are a Better Way to Sort Through the Blogosphere
Blogs have become the media for the masses, a way to tell the world about what you think, and become a little less anonymous. We all read them and the term “blog” is now an official part of the English language. Blogs show up in the results of the search engines and are used by everyone from individuals to large corporations. Most people already know this, but even with all the popularity blogs have received I still get weird looks when I ask people “what blog search do you use? “
A typical reply might be something like this:
“Blog Search? I just use (insert Google, Yahoo or MSN here) search engine.”
Using regular search engines is GREAT, except for finding blogs. If you only use the regular search, you may be missing out on one of the most powerful ways to get the latest news and information, as well as see what “real people” are blogging about.
There are two problems with only using conventional search engines (like searching off the main page of yahoo.com) for getting blog information:
One, there is a substantial time delay between when information is published online and when it is available in a search engine’s results. This is especially true with smaller websites and individual blogs. Say you write a great opinion piece directly after watching a political speech on TV. It may take the search engine six weeks to index that page; by that time the information may be “out of date.”
Two, Search engines rank results by word relevancy and in general prefer older, established sites. Because of this, a brand new blog or article is a lot less likely to appear on the first or second page of a search engine’s results. In addition, there is no way to reorganize the results by date, so if you’re looking for responses to an event that just happened, you will have to wade through any older events that use the same search “keywords.”
Ok, so how do you get the latest blog information, updated by the minute, from small and large websites, and sorted by date?
Use a specialty blog search, also called a “feed search.”
A specialty blog / feed search will allow you to search through blogs of all sizes and are typically updated by the minute, meaning you’ll have access to information almost immediately after it’s published online.
Blog searches also allow for a great variety of ways to sort the results, including by date. You can see the freshest information available, which is especially helpful on date sensitive topics like politics. You can also sort by relevancy and even blog authority. This will let you access to the latest and greatest information the world is blogging about. I NEVER use a conventional search engine when wading through the blogosphere and neither should you. Find a blog search you like. In another article I describe some of the most popular choices and that one I prefer.
