27. Search Through Blogs with Google

BEFORE YOU BEGIN	SEE ALSO
Perform a Basic Google Search Perform an Advanced Google Search About Google Search Operators About Google Reader and RSS Feeds	About Power Searching Strategies Search Through Google Groups

Several years ago, blogs, also sometimes called weblogs, took the world by storm. Blogs are, in essence, online journals or columns that are often personal or political in nature, typically written by a single person.

Hardly thought of several years ago, blogs have not just gone mainstreamthey have become enormously influential as well. They were instrumental in forcing Trent Lott to resign as Senate Majority Leader after he praised Senator Strom Thurmond's 1948 run for president on a segregationist platform, for example, and took center stage during the 2004 presidential campaign. Today, blogs are written by well-known journalists, celebrities, your neighbor down the street, and everyone in between. (For details on how to build your own blog using Google's Blogger service, see Create a Blogger Account. To find out how to subscribe to blogs, see About Google Reader and RSS Feeds.)

An enormous amount of talk, information, and frankly, hot air, is in what's called the blogosphere, a term that has come to mean the world of blogs. How do you find exactly what you want in it all? Head to Google's Blog Search. It searches only through blogs and makes it easy to read blog entries.

Go to Google Blog Search

The normal Google search doesn't do blog-specific search, so you have to go to Google Blog Search at http://blogsearch.google.com if you want to search only through blogs.

Type Your Search Terms

The Google Blog Search works like other Google searches. To search for a term or terms, type them into the search box and click Search Blogs. If you're looking for a specific blog or person, type the name of the blog or person.

Do an Advanced Search

Google Blog Search also has advanced tools for searching through blogs. To get to them, click Advanced Blog Search. In addition to the usual search features, you are able to search for terms only in the blog title, to search for blogs only by specific authors, to search for blogs written on or between specific dates, and to search for blogs written in specific languages.

Browse the Results

Search results are returned in the familiar Google fashion. You see the title of the specific blog entry, and just beneath that is the date and author of the entry. There is a synopsis of the blog as well. Underneath that is the name of the blog (for example, editorsweblog.org), and the overall blog's URL.

Click the result's title to visit the blog entry; click the link at the bottom of the result's entry to visit the blog's main page.

Read Links to the Blog

Next to some blog entries is a link titled References. Click it to see a list of blogs that have linked to the original blog entry.