6 February 2009
Dear Google, when does not a blog become a blog?
Confusing title?
I’ve not written here for a while, but I thought I’d break my silence and feed my blogging hunger by complaining about Google Blogsearch. I love it (usually) but recently I’ve spotted some annoyances that seem just plain unfair.
When is a blog not a blog?
Do a ‘london hotels’ search in Google Blogsearch and you’ll see what Google is calling ‘Related blogs’ sitting proud at the top of the results - presumably what Google says are the most relevant blogs for this term. The problem is, these sites aren’t blogs at all, just companies selling their product. You might disagree, but as far as I’m concerned, there is no way these are blogs in any sense.
So how did they get there? Looks to me like they just added an RSS feed of their products to that page. Pretty neat way of getting some greater exposure. They also appear in blended search on Google.co.uk if you do some derivates of ‘london hotels’.
4 Comments currently posted.
Nathan says:
tffanys says:
I am behind you.
fsfsfsfsffe says:
wcwwc
Ed Hardy shirts says:
it is good
It does seem to me that there isn’t really a foolproof way of discerning a blog from something that isn’t a blog. If the rss feed is called blog-updates or something then it probably is a blog, but indeed in this case it isn’t.
Can the question ‘when is a blog not a blog’ actually be concisely be answered? What’s the difference between a blog and a news site?