A new version of the blog tracking site’s search engine lets users sift through millions of blogs based on topic tags.
The new Technorati Blog Finder has become available in a beta version. This site searches through blogs based by the tags used by Technorati to categorize blogs it has found.
This is different from finding blog posts; the Blog Finder locates entire blogs on a topic. Derek Powazek posted more details about it on the Technorati blog:
“Blog Finder takes the power of the folksonomy – bottom-up, user-generated tags – and applies it to the Blogosphere. Looking for a blog about nanotechnology, sports, or politics? Look no further. Type in any text, or click on a featured tag, and find blogs on any subject. You can even use “OR” to put multiple tags together, like: Find a blog about Motherhood OR Fatherhood OR Parenting.
By default, the blogs are presented in order of authority, which means highly-linked blogs appear first. So each of these Blog Finder pages is like a mini Top 100 for any topic you can imagine. You can also sort each tag by how recently the blogs have updated, or alphabetical by title.”
Bloggers can become Technorati members and choose the tags, up to 20, they want to have assigned to their blogs. Non-members can include snippets of html code containing tags and ping Technorati to get their blogs included.
The service, being in beta, has its teething problems. Right now the blog finder only searches by tags. Search Engine Watch’s Gary Price notes pluralization poses a problem as well:
“You should get the same results when looking for blogs about hurricane or hurricanes but Technorati Blog Finder produces different results. No, I didn’t even find a cross-reference.
For Technorati Blog Finder to become a valuable tool to find blogs by subject, Technorati is going to need to do deeper analysis of a blog’s actual text (over an extended period of time) and rely less on tags. Right now, I’ll have to pass on this one.”
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
