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Google Blog Search loses its bearings

December 15, 2008 by Scott Rosenberg 25 Comments

You are viewing an old revision of this post, from December 15, 2008 @ 09:26:36. See below for differences between this version and the current revision.

Many serious bloggers rely on Google Blog Search to provide regular reports on who’s linking back to them. The blogging tool I use, WordPress, even uses Google’s blog search to feed a little window on the blog dashboard. (This is the listing it shows for this blog.)

The Google Blog Search results have generally been the fastest and most useful tool of this kind (Google displaced Technorati, which had long served in this role, some time ago). But a couple of months ago Google Blog Search started becoming pretty much useless. Instead of only reporting links from the “main” blog content, it reported all links on a blog page, including the so-called “sidebar” or blogroll, where many bloggers place a lengthy static list of blogs they read. So this means that, for instance, every time JD Lasica adds a new post to his blog at Social Media, which includes Wordyard in its blogroll, I get a new listing in the Google Blog Search for Wordyard, even though the post has nothing to do with Wordyard. This completely messes up the utility of Google’s search for me — and, from what I see posted by other serious bloggers, many other users.

Google’s whole expertise and reputation lies in the sorting of search results, so I’d hope and think that the company would pay close attention to this issue. But so far the only public comment I can find from Google itself about this problem is this post by Jeremy Hylton last month. Apparently Google Blog Search used to index only the content in the blog’s RSS feed, but now indexes the whole web page. Hylton says Google ” may have underestimated the impact on searches using the link: operator or where the query matches a blog or blogger’s name.” Since (for instance) every installation of WordPress uses such a search this is not a minor issue; it is, for many of us, the central use of the service.

Hylton says Google’s working on a fix. In the meantime, the company might do a little more outreach so that it doesn’t face the general perception that its service is simply broken, which is how it feels now.

Post Revisions:

  • December 15, 2008 @ 13:56:38 [Current Revision] by Scott Rosenberg
  • December 15, 2008 @ 13:56:04 by Scott Rosenberg
  • December 15, 2008 @ 09:26:36 by Scott Rosenberg

Changes:

December 15, 2008 @ 09:26:36Current Revision
Content
Unchanged: Many serious bloggers rely on <a href="http:// blogsearch.google.com/">Google Blog Search</a> to provide regular reports on who's linking back to them. The blogging tool I use, WordPress, even uses Google's blog search to feed a little window on the blog dashboard. (<a href="http:// blogsearch.google.com/ blogsearch?hl= en&ie=UTF-8&q= www.wordyard.com&btnG= Search+Blogs">This is the listing it shows</a> for this blog.)Unchanged: Many serious bloggers rely on <a href="http:// blogsearch.google.com/">Google Blog Search</a> to provide regular reports on who's linking back to them. The blogging tool I use, WordPress, even uses Google's blog search to feed a little window on the blog dashboard. (<a href="http:// blogsearch.google.com/ blogsearch?hl= en&ie=UTF-8&q= www.wordyard.com&btnG= Search+Blogs">This is the listing it shows</a> for this blog.)
Unchanged: The Google Blog Search results have generally been the fastest and most useful tool of this kind (Google displaced Technorati, which had long served in this role, some time ago). But a couple of months ago Google Blog Search started becoming pretty much useless. Instead of only reporting links from the "main" blog content, it reported all links on a blog page, including the so-called "sidebar" or blogroll, where many bloggers place a lengthy static list of blogs they read. So this means that, for instance, every time JD Lasica adds a new post to <a href="http:// www.socialmedia.biz/">his blog at Social Media</a>, which includes Wordyard in its blogroll, I get a new listing in the Google Blog Search for Wordyard, even though the post has nothing to do with Wordyard. This completely messes up the utility of Google's search for me -- and, from <a href="http:// bloggasm.com/ breaking-google- blogsearch-begins-returning- really-shoddy- results">what I see posted</a> by <a href="http:// www.seroundtable.com/archives/ 018624.html">other serious bloggers</a>, many other users. Unchanged: The Google Blog Search results have generally been the fastest and most useful tool of this kind (Google displaced Technorati, which had long served in this role, some time ago). But a couple of months ago Google Blog Search started becoming pretty much useless. Instead of only reporting links from the "main" blog content, it reported all links on a blog page, including the so-called "sidebar" or blogroll, where many bloggers place a lengthy static list of blogs they read. So this means that, for instance, every time JD Lasica adds a new post to <a href="http:// www.socialmedia.biz/">his blog at Social Media</a>, which includes Wordyard in its blogroll, I get a new listing in the Google Blog Search for Wordyard, even though the post has nothing to do with Wordyard. This completely messes up the utility of Google's search for me -- and, from <a href="http:// bloggasm.com/ breaking-google- blogsearch-begins-returning- really-shoddy- results">what I see posted</a> by <a href="http:// www.seroundtable.com/archives/ 018624.html">other serious bloggers</a>, many other users.
Unchanged: Google's whole expertise and reputation lies in the sorting of search results, so I'd hope and think that the company would pay close attention to this issue. But so far the only public comment I can find from Google itself about this problem is <a href="http:// groups.google.com/ group/google- blog-search/browse_thread/ thread/8244fc8731f47970">this post by Jeremy Hylton</a> last month. Apparently Google Blog Search used to index only the content in the blog's RSS feed, but now indexes the whole web page. Hylton says Google " may have underestimated the impact on searches using the link: operator or where the query matches a blog or blogger's name." Since (for instance) every installation of WordPress uses such a search this is not a minor issue; it is, for many of us, the central use of the service.Unchanged: Google's whole expertise and reputation lies in the sorting of search results, so I'd hope and think that the company would pay close attention to this issue. But so far the only public comment I can find from Google itself about this problem is <a href="http:// groups.google.com/ group/google- blog-search/browse_thread/ thread/8244fc8731f47970">this post by Jeremy Hylton</a> last month. Apparently Google Blog Search used to index only the content in the blog's RSS feed, but now indexes the whole web page. Hylton says Google " may have underestimated the impact on searches using the link: operator or where the query matches a blog or blogger's name." Since (for instance) every installation of WordPress uses such a search this is not a minor issue; it is, for many of us, the central use of the service.
Deleted: Hylton says Google's working on a fix. In the meantime, the company might do a little more outreach so that it doesn't face the general perception that its service is simply broken, which is how it feels now. Added: Hylton says Google's working on a fix. In the meantime, the company might do a little more outreach so that it doesn't face the general perception that its service is simply broken, which is how it feels now.
 Added: UPDATE: Danny Sullivan in comments below suggests that Google has focused on serving users doing general subject searches rather than bloggers searching for "who's linking to me." I'm sure that's right. But the bloggers are the ones creating the content -- they ought to be served well too. See <a href="http:// searchengineland.com/google- blog-search-now-with-full- text-post-indexing- 15722.php">Danny's Searchengineland post</a> for more info on the changes that Google made that resulted in this situation.

Note: Spaces may be added to comparison text to allow better line wrapping.

Filed Under: Blogging

Comments

  1. Ian Kallen

    December 15, 2008 at 10:26 am

    Hi Scott,
    I hope you’ll turn on the Technorati flavor of WordPress 2.7’s incoming links dashboard (I understand its a configuration option in 2.7) and let me know how that goes.
    thanks,
    -Ian

  2. Scott Rosenberg

    December 15, 2008 at 10:50 am

    Hi, Ian! I’d be happy to try that. But it turns out not to be easy. Here’s the deal: 2.7 lets you plug in any feed URL you want for that dashboard widget. Default is Google blogsearch. Switching to T-rati requires that I get a feed URL from T-rati to replace the default with. I thought, OK, I’m not an idiot, I can do that. I went to Technorati to find the feed URL for the incoming links to Wordyard.

    Well, it beats me how to do this these days. Long ago Technorati called this my “Cosmos” and it was the main feature. Today, I know, Technorati has many other things up its sleeve. Fine. But why is it so hard to find what used to be the heart of the service?

    I used the advanced search page, found the section titled “URL search,” and figured that would work. But,when I plug in the URL “http://www.wordyard.com” in the URL search, what’s returned is a “tag page” — and of course nobody has tagged my pages with the URL. This is totally bizarre, since there’s *another* option on the advanced search page that’s for “tag search.” The URL search seems to be just a “tag search” on th URL, which is, you know, sort of useless.

    Maybe there is some totally obvious way to find what I actually need here, and I’m just missing it. But I’m sorry to say it is wild goose chases like this that have, over the years, led me to stop using Technorati very often.

  3. Benjamin Ragheb

    December 15, 2008 at 11:50 am

    What did you expect? It’s only a beta!

  4. Taylor Davidson

    December 15, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    First time I saw it, I was surprised. Second time, annoyed. Now, I Google Blog Search just creates too much noise and it’s one of the last things I check out. There’s a lesson there…

  5. Anonymous

    December 15, 2008 at 12:50 pm

    You know, wordpress has started to report an “incoming link” whenever someone who has me on their blogroll posts anything at all. Annoying!

  6. scott

    December 15, 2008 at 12:51 pm

    Sorry, I accidentally posted anonymously. It’s just me!

  7. Heather Kennedy

    December 15, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    I’ve only recently been paying attention to Blogsearch with some pretty hysterical results. It’s quite clear to me that on the small scale you can see they are playing with their criteria/algorithms and can’t quite figure out how to adjust rank/display. For example, even just a few weeks back, my name brought up a fake MySpace page obviously w/ associations to that other person with my same name.

    My guess is they are also feeding in results of those use Google Reader, those who add suggested blogs to their reader, etc. –not just a Technorati style ranking. It will be interesting to see if they make this a more useful search tool.

  8. Danny Sullivan

    December 15, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    Scott, I have a long post on the full-text indexing that went up last week:
    http://searchengineland.com/google-blog-search-now-with-full-text-post-indexing-15722.php

    Covers how they’re still working on the backlink solution, among other things.

    But when you say this:

    “Google’s whole expertise and reputation lies in the sorting of search results, so I’d hope and think that the company would pay close attention to this issue.”

    Backlink reports aren’t likely the main thing people are doing. Instead, they’re searching for content on particular topics. The shift to full-text is the right move in that direction, even if it’s causing pain among those of us backlink tracking.

  9. Scott Rosenberg

    December 15, 2008 at 1:53 pm

    Danny, thanks, that’s good info.

    On backlinks versus basic content search: In terms of numbers of users, yes, I’m sure far more people use Blogsearch as in essence a “silo” of regular Google, searching for text that’s only “on blogs.”

    But the people who use it for backlink search are hardcore, heavy-duty users. They’re also the people who *create* all that blog content that’s being indexed. So serving them well — or at least serving them attentively and responding to their concerns — surely makes good sense…

  10. Tara Anderson

    December 15, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    Scott, have you heard of Lijit?

    Besides our useful WordPress plugin that allows you to override your default WordPress search bar and have the results powered by Lijit, we offer you many detailed stats including a list of other bloggers who have listed you in their blogroll.

    Our search makes all of your online content searchable, including Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Additionally, we give your readers trusted results from your blog, content, and your network–meaning other blogs you trust and link to in your blogroll.

    Sorry for the pitch, but if you’re looking for a better blog search, I think Lijit is the way to go. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have…I’m tara at lijit dot com.

  11. Rich Pearson

    December 15, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    FairShare is another service that will help here. It’s not yet open for public beta, but it will give bloggers visibility to where else their posts are is appearing, if there is a link (or not) plus a bunch of other stuff based on the Creative Commons license you assign.

  12. David Sifry

    December 15, 2008 at 7:04 pm

    Scott,

    Here’s what you do:

    Go to http://s.technorati.com/

    Type in your blog URL (www.woodyard.com) into the search box. Don’t put in the http:// in there.

    You’ll see your cosmos.

    Click on the subscribe button on the upper right hand side.

    http://feeds.technorati.com/search/www.wordyard.com

    You’re done.

    Of course, alternatively you could just type in:
    http://feeds.technorati.com/search/URL-YOU-ARE-LOOKING-FOR

    Dave

    P.S. Sorry I’ve been so busy of late that I haven’t responded to your pesonal email recently. I promise to get on it soon, I’ve just ben so busy with the Launch of Offbeat Guides…

  13. Matt Cutts

    December 15, 2008 at 10:16 pm

    Hey Scott, I wouldn’t misinterpret the change in Google Blog Search as a step backwards. Indexing the full-text of blog posts (not just the partial post from an RSS feed) is a big step forward for Google blog search. It’s true that as a result of doing a full crawl in response to pings, we do index the whole page now, which can lead to this behavior with the link: operator in blog search. But as Jeremy Hylton mentioned, folks at Google are looking at this and I expect it to get better with time. So while link: is temporarily less useful in Google Blog Search, the main part of Google Blog Search (normal searches) can give many more documents now, which is overall good for users. And I expect that we’ll get link: working like the power-bloggers such as yourself want as well.

  14. Scott Rosenberg

    December 15, 2008 at 11:56 pm

    Dave, thanks, that’s great information. Obviously the question is, shouldn’t that be easier to find on Technorati’s site? Since I’m sure you know that, I’ll leave it at that.

    Matt, that’s all good to know. I guess for me the plain-vanilla Google always seemed to do a great job of full-text indexing of blogs, and I’ve never had the urge to segregate the blog search from the rest of the web, so the real utility of Blog search lay in the link tracking. I’m glad to know you guys are working on making it useful again.

  15. Eric Ward

    December 17, 2008 at 8:56 am

    There are many ways to do this without having to rely on Google to do our backlink research for us. Is it really Google’s job to tell writer’s, marketers, and SEOs us who links to us and when? link: is a gift, not a right.

  16. Mike

    January 4, 2009 at 6:02 pm

    Indeed it will be interesting to see how it pans out. linking is pretty important to bloggers and I for one want to now who is linking to us.

  17. Rafay Bin Ali

    January 9, 2009 at 4:35 pm

    Here is a web service that provides RSS results for Google Search

    http://www.ecubicle.net/gsearch_rss.asmx

    Since the returned XML is RSS 2.0 compliant, the web service can also be called in a feed reader like this:

    http://www.ecubicle.net/gsearch_rss.asmx/GetSearchResults?searchPage=0&gQuery=tutorial+asp+net&numOfResults=15

    You need to change the searchPage, gQuery and numOfResults querystring parameters to your choice. gQuery parameter accepts all standard Google Search Operators.

  18. arm104

    January 29, 2009 at 8:45 pm

    I use Google Blog Search when I want to rapidly perform a blog search – it’s less cluttered and far more reponsive than technorati

  19. Trackback - Free Internation Call >> How to make free international call

    November 19, 2009 at 3:01 pm

    ,..] http://www.wordyard.com is another useful source on this subject,..]

Trackbacks

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  6. xavierv says:
    February 3, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    Has anyone saw this recently in their traffic analytics?

    Did Google finally post a link from their homepage to your site? Dream on! Google is working on the integration of a new search experience high on Ajax. The consequence is that analytics tools will be referrer-blind. Not quite, but almost. Here is how Sean from Clicky summarizes it:

    Here’s what the new search result URLs look like with the new “Ajax” feature:
    http://www.google.com/#q=clicky
    See how there’s a hash mark # in there now, and the “q=test” is after it? The problem is that web browsers don’t send anything after the # in the referrer string. This means organic searches from Google will now show up as just “http://www.google.com/”, with no search parameters. In other words, no analytics app can track these searches anymore.

    The reaction in the community is divided: some think it will get fixed; some think that Google is doomed if they try to blind us all; others believe that as a business, Google is in its right to do whatever they feel like. Personally, I am torn between two things:
    1. Google’s philosophy is geared towards openness. I trust this brand.
    2. There are just too many changes going on right now: The economic climate hastens Web companies to make cash. Google is no exception. It already shut down a few services. Companies like Twitter opt for VIP access to make money. Facebook has always been a walled-garden, and it is growing at a scary pace.

    And of course, Google Blog Search ‘broke’, and it doesn’t seem like they are about to fix it.
    So which road will Google take here? If they make referring keywords private, of course it will generate a shameless amount of money for the company. It would be so ‘evil’ though, it would seriously hurt the brand. I don’t think that Google would cut us off this way, but by switching technologies, they have leeway to negotiate a new relationship with publishers based on new rules.
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