I’ve posted before about how blog search differs from normal search, and how there is a great need for it for both relevance and timely information. Technorati, blo.gs, IceRocket and Google are a few of the main players in this arena.
Sphere, is the new kid on the block. Their Beta started this weekend. They claim to have a new and better algorithm that allows them to:
- delivers the most relevant, timely and authoritative posts and blogs on any topic;
- indexes and searches the full text of each post, not just the feed contents or the home page;
- allows you to search by relevance and time;
- uses content analysis to blend related mainstream media with blog results for a complete picture
Time and more testing will tell if this what they claim is true. At this point I’m impressed with the speed of the searches, but I’m not convinced of their relevance yet. Why? Because I searched for “White African” and nothing from my blog appeared – I know there are not a lot of white african references on the web, so this seems odd to me. The only reference I find is on a blog that links back to me (Sudan Watch).
Anyway, I know this is in Beta, and I know I should search for more than just “white african”. I’ll do that over the next week and let everyone know my findings.
October 31, 2005 at 9:05 am
Thanks for this. I have subscribed to see what it is about. My link to your blog still has not showed in your list at Technorati – I posted the link about a week ago. Sometime links take weeks to show at Technorati, which is disappointing. I view Technorati as bloglands phone network, but it’s not very useful when people don’t get the messages I’ve pinged to them by linking. Here’s hoping this search engine will work better. The one Blogger/Google introduced is full of spam blogs and the search your blog facility Blogger introduced now does not work so its near to impossible searching for particular posts within a blog. Kind regards from England, UK.
October 31, 2005 at 9:24 am
Sudan Watch, I agree with your thoughts on the current blog search engines. Google Search has not been that impressive, and though I find Technorati good, it is inconsistent. Sphere is walking into a highly competitive arena, but also one that there is room for improvement in.
Sphere’s elements do look promising, but it is very much in it’s Beta stage and needs some work. If they are a good company they will take a lot of the feedback from us beta testers and implement it.
By the way, I really appreciate Sudan Watch and the service you provide.