Search Engines Level the Playing Field for Bloggers
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Google introduced Blog Search beta in mid-September of last year. It includes any blog that publishes either an RSS or Atom site feed. Google is not the only engine to deeply incorporate blogs, but what does it mean to the reader when independant blogs and professional journalism are presented together? What does it mean to these websites?
Google defines blogs as sites that use RSS and other structured feeds and update content on a regular basis. On their Blog Search FAQ page, they describe this service as, “Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves.”
While Google’s web search has included blogs for some time, and Google News lists some blogs as news sources, they limit their choice of blogs in their News Search to what they consider reputable blogs. Google has excluded news sources from the results in the blog search, except in rare cases, so there is little overlap between Google News and Google Blog Search. (Side note: I have yet to find information on what Google considers to be a reputable blog.)
On September 14, 2005, Chris Sherman of Search Engine Watch said, “Now that Google has launched blog search, expect the other major search engines to follow suit fairly quickly. All have been feverishly working on blog search over the past year, and now that Google is first out the gate the others will likely move quickly.” He was indeed right.
We heard some time ago that MSN began quietly testing blog search capabilities after partnering with Moreover Technologies, but that was clear back in January of 2005. There’s been a good deal of speculation since then, but there is no formal word yet on what is going on over at MSN in regard to the blogosphere search, even though MSN held the “MSN Search Champs Camp,” with a primary focus on integrating blogs into its search results.
Yahoo stepped up to the plate, however, and quickly followed suit behind Google and launched their blog search in mid-October. But Yahoo is taking a different approach to its blogs and news searches, which has the journalistic community in an uproar. According to Reuters, Yahoo News, one of the world's most popular Internet media destinations, has begun testing an expanded news search system that includes not only news stories and blogs but also user-contributed photos and related Web links. Yahoo said its move to “...combine professionally edited news alongside the work of grassroots commentators promises to enrich the sources of information on breaking news events.”
"Traditional media doesn't have the time and resources to cover all the stories," Joff Redfern, product director for Yahoo Search said. "It really does add substantially to what you are looking at when you are looking for news."
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