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.

The Mahalo Greenhouse is where talented part-time Guides (PTGs) help Mahalo create the best search results on the internet. PTGs create search results in the Mahalo Greenhouse for terms Mahalo has yet to cover, and if our full-time Guides approve the PTGs' search results, those results will be moved from the Mahalo Greenhouse to Mahalo.

Anyone can apply to be a PTG. PTGs are paid $10 to $15 for each search result approved and added to Mahalo.

However, don't laugh. This tiny trick saves me lots of time over the years. Consider this. According to my Google search history I have performed a staggering 31,000 searches over the last two years since they added this feature. Many of these are phrases. Let's argue it's half of them. If I save 0.5 seconds thanks to the dashed-search technique and multiply it times 15,500, I calculate that I have saved 7,500 seconds. That adds up to 125 minutes or two hours! That means I saved at least an hour a year. Plus, that's not counting the tons of other searches on sites the Google history doesn't track.

Your mileage may vary but give it a try.

Topix is following the user-powered models of the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Open Directory Project (ODP) of Web links in which volunteers are responsible for creating and editing entries. Topix will avoid the spam problem that sites like Digg have by requiring people to sign up with their real names, said Rich Skrenta, chief executive officer. Skrenta is co-founder of the ODP.

Anyone can submit local news by ZIP code through the Web site or from their cell phone. The citizen journalist idea came to executives after they unearthed hidden in the site's forums a posting from a Texas Minuteman of his first-person experience patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border, something that wasn't published anywhere else, Skrenta said.

links from blogrolls (especially from high-quality blogrolls or blogrolls of "trusted bloggers")

links from other sources (mail, chats)

using tags to categorize a post

PageRank

the number of feed subscriptions (from feed readers)

clicks in search results

The popularity of the blog document may be a positive indication of the quality of that blog document. A number of news aggregator sites (commonly called "news readers" or "feed readers") exist where individuals can subscribe to a blog document (through its feed). Such aggregators store information describing how many individuals have subscribed to given blog documents. A blog document having a high number of subscriptions implies a higher quality for the blog document. Also, subscriptions can be validated against "subscriptions spam" (where spammers subscribe to their own blog documents in an attempt to make them "more popular") by validating unique users who subscribed, or by filtering unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the subscribers.

To rank the search results, Google combines a quality score obtained by mixing those signals with a relevance score (IR score) that depends on the query. "The IR score may be determined based on the number of occurrences of the search terms in the document. The IR score may be determined based on where the search terms occur within the document (e.g., title, content, etc.) or characteristics of the search terms (e.g., font, size, color, etc.). A search term may be weighted differently from another search term when multiple search terms are present. The proximity of the search terms when multiple search terms are present may influence the IR score." (the quote was slightly altered for clarity)

Personal Bee's founder will come in as VP of business development at Technorati; we're not sure whether the value of the target was in engineering, where Technorati's been weak. Any significance beyond that? One person familiar with Personal Bee says Technorati -- which has in the past offered brand-tracking to marketers, ego-surfing to bloggers and search to ordinary users -- plans now to build themed news pages in the style of Techmeme.

Topix.net, the news search site majority owned by Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune, has bought its .com domain after paying a Canadian company $1 million in January (late last year Topix received $15 million funding), and is planning to move the site onto Topix.com, reports WSJ. The story, which makes a bigger point about search engine influence on other sites, says it is worried about the effect on its Google rankings after this. About 50 percent of visits to Topix come through a search engine, and about 90 percent out of that is through Google...Even if traffic to Topix, which gets about 10 million visitors a month, dropped just 10 percent, that would essentially be a 10 percent loss in ad revenue, CEO Rick Skrenta said in the story. Topix will run its site at both Topix.net and Topix.com for awhile, in order to get over any unpredictabilities in Google and other search results.

1. Occupation Project/Halls of Congress DC (Blog list)
2. Chris Simon Cheapshot (Blog list)
3. Simon Two-Hands Hollweg Mar 8, 2007 (Blog list)
4. Canon EOS-1D Mark III Snapping Off Frames Like a House Afire (Blog list)
5. My Chemical Romance UK Single - I Don't Love You (Blog list)
6. South Park Says the N Word! (Blog list)
7. '93 Giuliani ad with Donna Hanover and kids (Blog list)
8. The Third Coming (Blog list)
9. Democrat Hypocrisy on Iraq (Blog list)
10. Monzy performs at Stanford Univ. (Blog list)

WikiSeek is a search engine that has indexed only Wikipedia sites, plus sites that are linked to from Wikipedia. It serves two purposes. First, it is a much better Wikipedia search engine than the one on Wikipedia (and has been built with Wikipedia’s assistance and permission). Second, the fact that it also indexes sites that are linked to from Wikipedia means that, presumably, it will return only very high quality results and very little spam. It won’t show every relevant result to a query, but it will certainly give a good overview of a subject without all the mess.

The search results also include a tag cloud which contains Wikipedia categories containing the search term. Results can be quickly filtered by clicking on one of those categories (see screen shot, click for larger view). The first three results of a query are always Wikipedia content (unless there are not three results) and are shaded blue. The remaining results are below the shaded area.

Development on Findory now will slow to a crawl. There may be new features, but they will be rare. I no longer will spend time exploring funding, biz dev deals, or recruiting.

Findory appears to have sufficient resources to run on autopilot through most of 2007. Findory will eventually fade away, but I believe it has touched immortality through the impact it had.

It was exciting, challenging, and fun to try to build a startup. I consider myself very lucky to have had that opportunity.

1. 2006 Petition Against Changes in the Livejournal Interface on mother.livejournal.com, linked by 801 posts
2. Colbert Does the White House Correspondents Dinner on Crooks and Liars, linked by 622 posts
3. Keith Olbermann Delivers One Hell Of a Commentary on Rumsfeld from Crooks and Liars, linked by 359 posts
4. State of the Blogosphere, August 2006 from Sifry.com, linked by 339 posts.
5. Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Bush: Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you. from Crooks and Liars, linked by 330 posts.
6. Support Denmark: Why The Forbidden Cartoons Matter from MichelleMalkin.com, linked by 307 posts.
7. SNL: If Al Gore were President from Crooks and Liars, linked by 286 posts.
8. Milking it? from EU Referendum, linked by 284 posts.
9. State of the Blogosphere, February 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth from Sifry.com, linked by 282 posts.
10. State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth from Sifry.com, linked by 269 posts.

A source tells us that the working name for the project was "WikiSearch" until recently. It's clear that Wikiasari will be focused on quality first, depth second. Search results will include tag based navigation, the top three results will be wikipedia content, and the remaining results are determined by sites wikipedia considers to be "reputable" because they are external reference links from wikipedia pages.

Since all search results will be tied to wikipedia, either directly by linking to wikipedia content or because the sites are linked to from Wikipedia, real people will eventually be determining all search results and rankings within Wikiasari. The search engine will be opensource, and the index will be available under a GFDL. Wikia will operate the master version of the index, but others are free to take it under the terms of the GFDL.

1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki

And from the blogosphere, Perez Hilton is the most-searched blog site of 2006, generating 91 percent more search interest than the second most popular blog site with web searchers, Huffington Post. While Huffington Post provides news and opinions, three of the top five most-searched blog sites this year cater to celebrity gossip news, including Perez Hilton, a.k.a. Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., TMZ, a.k.a. "Thirty Mile Zone" around Hollywood, and Pink is the New Blog. The fifth most popular blog site in 2006 is PostSecret, an ongoing community art project where people anonymously email their secrets on postcards.

Chinese Internet company Baidu launched its blog search service on Thursday to help Internet users navigate their way through the 20 million Chinese bloggers.

It is the first Chinese search service specifically for blogs.

Yu Jun, a senior executive with Baidu, said the service was based on a database of billions of websites, including all the blogs supported by Chinese blog service providers and individual blog websites.

The new service is expected to boost Baidu's users. Baidu started its space channel last July to provide blog services.

Many people have asked about the meaning of our name. "Baidu" was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. ".hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood." Baidu, whose literal meaning is hundreds of times, represents persistent search for the ideal.

Original content covering developments in the search space.

Daily blog posts covering search news from across the web.

SearchCap: A daily email newsletter recapping search news from Search Engine Land and across the web. Also available by feed.

SearchCap Monthly: A monthly email newsletter recapping search news over the past month. Also available by feed.

Topix, founded in 2002, aggregates news and categorizes it into topics. Earlier this year, the company added the ability for readers to comment on articles. Topix provides automated related links on some of the Web sites of newspapers owned by the investors and is adding reader comment capabilities to their sites as well. Chris Tolles, vice president of sales and marketing at Topix, said the company would spend the funding on hiring and marketing. Company executives want to double the 25-person staff over the next year, he said. "For us to grow, we needed the money."

But what is perhaps most interesting about the new Custom Search is that publishers (large or small) can allow anyone or selected colleagues, friends or community members to contribute to that index. For example, if I own a site dedicated to stamp collecting and have a group of regular contributors or trusted readers I can allow those individuals to contribute their selections to this index. This gives the index the ability to evolve and grow over time -- and makes it "social."

"A year ago, brands were saying, 'Oh no, not the blogosphere,'" said Peter Hirshberg, chief executive of Technorati, a blog-tracking service that last week, in partnership with Edelman, provided results of a global survey of blog use. "Now they're saying, 'Great, this is an opportunity.'"

When Viacom offered $750 million for Facebook in January, he asked for $2 billion and was rebuffed, according to a person involved in the negotiations. Now, he remains undecided about the latest offer, made in the last few weeks by Yahoo. That offer, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was confirmed Thursday by two industry executives, one briefed on the deal by Facebook and the other by Yahoo. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are continuing.

To woo Zuckerberg, Yahoo has offered about $900 million for Facebook and says it will keep the company somewhat independent, with Zuckerberg in charge. This has been its model with other acquisitions like Flickr, a photo-sharing site, and Del.icio.us, a social bookmarking service that lets members share lists of their favorite Web sites.

Back in 1997, I sold Search Engine Watch to what became Jupitermedia. That company later started the Search Engine Strategies conference series. I had a long and prosperous association with both of those properties (USA Today recently recounted the tale here). I renegotiated my contract to provide services for both of them to Jupitermedia several times without any major issues.

Last year, Jupitermedia sold the site and the series to Incisive Media. I wasn't unhappy with the sale and chose to let my contract be extended through the end of 2006 as part of it.

I was concerned about moving forward with Incisive, however. I'm far from the only reason behind the success of SEW and SES, but I've played a major role. I helped build both of those assets. Then I watched one company sell them to another without me having any formal capital stake in the sale. That left me wary of history repeating itself. I wasn't going to help this new company grow the business out of the sheer kindness of my heart.

I explained these reservations at the very beginning of my relationship with Incisive, that I needed some long-term incentive for helping them continue to grow and strengthen the site and conferences. After over a year of talks, that's failed to materialize. As a result, I'm departing.

No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from "numb fingers" to "60 single men" to "dog that urinates on everything."

And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for "landscapers in Lilburn, Ga," several people with the last name Arnold and "homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia."

It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends’ medical ailments and loves her three dogs. "Those are my searches," she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her.

AOL removed the search data from its site over the weekend and apologized for its release, saying it was an unauthorized move by a team that had hoped it would benefit academic researchers.

But the detailed records of searches conducted by Ms. Arnold and 657,000 other Americans, copies of which continue to circulate online, underscore how much people unintentionally reveal about themselves when they use search engines — and how risky it can be for companies like AOL, Google and Yahoo to compile such data.

Technorati has been tracking the blogosphere, or world of weblogs, since November 2002, and I'm constantly amazed at the growth over the years. The blogosphere has been doubling in size every 6 months or so. It is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago.

Whenever I write about these statistics, I'm always asked by people, "Can it continue to grow this quickly?" Frankly, I can't possibly imagine it continuing to grow at this pace - after all, there are only so many human beings in the world! It has to slow down.

Technorati is now tracking over 50 Million Blogs.

The Blogosphere is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago.

Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days, or about once every 6 and a half months.

From January 2004 until July 2006, the number of blogs that Technorati tracks has continued to double every 5-7 months.

About 175,000 new weblogs were created each day, which means that on average, there are more than 2 blogs created each second of each day.

About 8% of new blogs get past Technorati's filters, even if it is only for a few hours or days.

About 70% of the pings Technorati receives are from known spam sources, but we drop them before we have to send out a spider to go and index the splog.

Total posting volume of the blogosphere continues to rise, showing about 1.6 Million postings per day, or about 18.6 posts per second.

This is about double the volume of about a year ago.

The most prevalent times for English-language posting is between the hours of 10AM and 2PM Pacific time, with an additional spike at around 5PM Pacific time.

"This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it," Andrew Weinstein, an AOL spokesman said. "It was an innocent-enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in an instant."

As we've seen more types of information get syndicated, and as feeds are becoming used for multiple purposes, we've been growing concerned about the lack of controls on the distribution of personal data, especially through RSS. For example, you may want to allow your friends and family to subscribe to your blog but you'd prefer your posts not show up in search results.

Along these lines, we recently offered a new way to claim your own feeds and indicate whether you want your feed included or excluded from Blog & Feed search on Ask.com and Bloglines (for more information, read the blog post announcing our Publisher Tools). But this method only solves the issue at Bloglines and Ask.com, and it doesn't address user-created (as opposed to publisher-created) feeds, like flickr feeds, which can't be claimed. Clearly, there is a need for an industry-wide solution.

As a result, we are proposing (and have implemented) an RSS and ATOM extension that allows publishers to indicate the distribution restrictions of a feed. Setting the access restriction to 'deny' will indicate the feed should not be re-distributed. In Bloglines, we'll use this to prevent the display of the feed information or posts in search results or any other public venue. If other readers and aggregators use the information in the same way, and publishers of feeds, including services that let users create feeds, implement this standard, we could make significant progress toward making feeds truly safe for non-public information. We think that's a pretty cool idea.

Dabble collects video data from 240 + hosting sites that accept video uploads from people, plus tens of thousands of independent sites. Dabble also collects other sorts of media like audio for searching and organizing. And Dabblers bookmark media they find around the web. Dabble does not host media, but instead, makes media from anywhere on the web searchable, collectable through our bookmarking tool, part of a community, able to be tagged and commented upon, made into playlists and played. Dabble is an organizing tool to help people discover the value of media.

Feedster, Inc., the leader in search and syndication of dynamic content, has announced today that Tyler Goldman will join its Board of Directors and become acting president. Mr. Goldman was previously Senior VP of Corporate & Business Development at Movielink, and founder and CEO of Broadband Sports, Inc. Former president, Chris Redlitz, left to pursue interests in earlier stage companies.

"Feedster is well positioned to expand its leadership in search and syndication." said Mr. Goldman. "With 41 million blogs and feeds being searched dynamically, Feedster provides consumers with the best way to leverage the constant flow of information that is being published on the web. Feedster is well recognized by the technology community as the leading search and syndication engine for dynamic web-published content, including blogs, news and podcasts, and is in the process of expanding this leadership position in newly emerging areas like images and video. As millions of users, publishers and other web-based entities continually generate a vast amount of dynamic content Feedster provides a comprehensive platform to search and syndicate content that is most relevant and timely."