eWeek reports that Google is going to add blogs to its Universal Search alongside images, news, books, maps and videso. Google has been running Google Blogsearch as a seperate search engine. eWeek says Google will make the move to include blogs this week (which is nearly over) or next week.
Starting this week or next, queries on the leading search engine will return links to blogs alongside the images, news, books, local maps and video, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, told eWEEK in a briefing at the company's headquarters here.
Blogs have been gaining significant momentum in the last couple of years, fueled by everything from fascinating news revelations to gossipy snipes. The inclusion of blogs as a genre on Universal Search is a nod to their growing number and ability to get people to go online to find content, which is what Google is all about.
Universal Search is the fruit of a five-year effort involving hundreds of engineers working to refine the company's search algorithms and add multimedia content to its search returns to give users richer results.
It's a logical move for Google or any search engine that wants to provide current and relevant information for it users. Frequently updated blogs tend to contain news about what is happening right now. That's often just the kind of information people are searching for. Blogs have always been indexed by Google so it will be interesting to see how much more exposure this will give blogs and what the search results will look like.
Here is a video explaining what Google's Universal Search is all about. (hat tip Jim Kukral).
