Blog search tools are numerous; most of them are pretty much useless (per my opinion). Here I am looking only at the most helpful and unique ones that I do recommend trying and that offer some great features.
| Google Blog Search | Technorati | Blog Pulse | Blog Lines | |
| Sort by | relevance/ date | only by date | date or relevance | date / relevance / popularity |
| Overall results relevance / usefulness | high | moderate | moderate | moderate |
| Most useful advanced search option | [inblogtitle] and [intitle] | Search for blogs with highest “authority” | backlink research operator | Search for blogs with most subscribers (hence “more popular”) |
| Subscription options | RSS and email | RSS | RSS | RSS |
| Most useful additional feature | Blog meme tracking | Related tag cloud | “Trend this” graph | Feed search |
Google Blog Search
Google Blog Search is a multi-language, multi-platform blog search engine maintaining the largest index and fastest update rate:
- sort by date or by relevance;
- set the date range option (published past 1 hour, past 12 hours, etc or choose the date range);
- support of advanced operators:
- phrase control (exact match, forced word exclusion/ inclusion);
- [inblogtitle:keyword] restricts search to blog titles;
- [blogurl:keyword] restricts search to blog URLs;
- [inpostauthor:"Author Name"] searches for posts written by a specified author;
- [link:http://www.domain.com] returns blogs linking to the given page.
Technorati
Technorati “indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time”:
“If Google is the Web’s reference library, Technorati is becoming its coffee house.” [source]
- related tags support;
- related tag cloud (updated in real time):
- term trend graph:
- automatic language setting customization;
- Advanced search:
- phrase control (exact match, forced word exclusion/ inclusion);
- set the desired “authority”;
- search for either posts or blogs;
- restrict results to one blog;
- tag search;
- blog / post reactions search (posts linking to).
Blog Pulse
Blog Pulse is a blog search engine and blog buzz tracking service developed by Nielsen BuzzMetrics.
- sort by date or by relevance;
- advanced search:
- boolean logics support;
- phrase control (exact match, include all words, include any of the words);
- date range setting;
- backlink research.
- “Trend this” graph:
Blog Lines
BlogLines.com was founded back in 2003 and is currently a property of IAC Search & Media (also operating Ask.com).
- sort by date / relevance / popularity;
- search for posts / feeds / citation;
- set the date option (past date, past week, etc).
- updates once per hour;
- advanced search:
- phrase control (exact match, include all words, include any of the words, exclude any of the words);
- set the number of subscribers (within Bloglines).
Two more blog search tools I failed to find helpful enough:
Comments
20 responses so far ↓
Jeff on Oct 24, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Hi , Thanks for the breakdown…it’s nice to have it layed out like that. I am still partial to google blog search..but this definitely is a great way to compare them. Thanks Smarty!
Sam Freedoms Internet Marketing Controversy Blog on Oct 24, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Excellent breakdown! A wonderful resource for insane hand-commenters ;) seeking precious backlinks.
Alphane Moon on Oct 25, 2008 at 1:37 am
There is also a blog search engine called Twingly:
http://www.twingly.com/
It allows sorting of the results by Date, Inlinks and TwinglyRank (whatever that means). And filtering by language is also possible.
Amit Patel on Oct 25, 2008 at 3:53 am
I use only Google Blog search, not only because it tracks down everything easily but also quickly and shows with multiple options. Technorati counts in all the splogs which link back to our blogs and generally their stats are always out of order!
@ Bloglines - Its destructed right? :) http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/18/googles-destruction-of-bloglines-now-complete/
Engineer a Debt Free Life on Oct 25, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Cool, hadn’t heard of these before! May have to check some of them out!
Dragon Blogger on Oct 26, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Thanks for the good review of the 4 major blog searching engines, I am still partial to google blogsearch myself, but I do use Technorati occasionally.
Rethink SEO on Oct 26, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Cool Post, I love Technorati… How do i get a better alexa rating thats the real questions :)
Saad on Oct 27, 2008 at 1:14 am
IMO, Google Blog Search is the best for blog search.. But technorati is also good for tech niche.
SEO company on Oct 27, 2008 at 6:46 am
I tend to use Google Blog search a lot as well because it is returning so many pages!
I think Technoarti is great as well though.
Joel Drapper on Oct 27, 2008 at 7:17 am
I use google blog alerts mostly. They are great!
Kevin Donnellon on Oct 27, 2008 at 8:42 am
as I experiment, what would you recommend should be a priority for learning the most about blog search engines? thanks for help for this rookie.
Ann Smarty on Oct 27, 2008 at 10:56 am
Hey, Kevin… Would you please explain, don’t think I understand your question - sorry :)
SM on Oct 27, 2008 at 11:21 am
I definitely prefer google blogs. Their results are the best!
Sean Murphy, Rofo - Silicon Valley Office Space
Cooking Recipe on Oct 27, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Thanks for the good review of the 4 major blog searching engines.
Christophe Folschette on Oct 27, 2008 at 3:39 pm
For those of you that are interested, give a try to http://www.iterend.com , we added some more invitations.
Some features: sentence level search, category search, related phrases, related posts,….
The engine actually covers 250 000 main blogs according to an interneal ranking. We will increase this number very shortly!
Regards
Christophe
wasaweblog on Dec 27, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Thank you for your succint and very useful summary of blog search tools. Like a few others, I am partial to Google, but will give others a try.
Tom on Jan 21, 2009 at 12:16 am
Thanks. That info. is really well laid out, are they the only ones that you think are effective.
franque on Jan 22, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I’m thinking google blog looks better. It’s amazing how much is out there-oceans of info every which way. I’ve way tooo little time on any aat this point to have a valid opinion as to which blog is better for me.
JS on May 18, 2009 at 9:31 am
Technoarti is probably the most comprehensive blog search tbh… although i’m a big fan of blog runner.
Stella on Jun 5, 2009 at 6:31 am
I love technorati but I also use google. These two make the best choice.
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