battle of the blog search

You all know this, but one of the most useful things about the knit blog scene is the ability to read about other knitter's experiences with a pattern. For example, I often search for a pattern name and "sucks" when I'm trying to decide on a new project, just to avoid any hellish knitting experiences. Whether you are looking for errata, a yarn substitution or an explanation of something confusing, it's quite likely that someone has already blogged about it. The trick is finding the posts.

Luckily there are now search engines optimized specifically for blog content. I'm sure this isn't new information to a lot of you, but in this post I'm going to give a mini review of three of the blog search tools I use: Technorati, IceRocket and Google Blog Search.

I decided to just do a simple comparison of search results using five of the patterns from the new Winter 2005 issue of Knitty: Forecast, Creatures, Tubey, Mrs Beeton and Tempting II.

In each case I searched for knitty AND nameofpattern (I used quotes around the pattern names that contained more than word) and recorded the number of posts I found in each search engine.

Here's a chart of the results (click it to enlarge) I found this morning. [Lest ye think I'm a total dork with too much time on my hands, this silly chart took just a few minutes and relates to something else I'm working on.]

On average, it looks like Technorati returns the most posts, with Google having a slight edge over IceRocket. However, the number of posts found doesn't necessarily mean the best results, because there are certainly posts that show up that may have contained those keywords in a context other than the Knitty pattern.

All of the search engines give you the ability to do more advanced searches so you can do things like exclude certain words. For example, if you are searching for people posting about Stefanie's new pattern Forecast, you might end up with a bunch of knitters posting about a blizzard heading in their direction. To avoid this you can use advanced search options to make sure you are searching for knitty AND forecast, but making sure to leave out posts containing the word weather. Each search engine gives you additional tools to refine your results further to make them more relevant to you.

In Technorati, you can restrict your search to blogs that have tagged themselves as being about knitting, rather than the entire blogosphere. They also let you quickly paste in a URL and see who is linking back to it (you can do this in other search engines, but it's often not as intuitive). And, if you create an account, you can easily add a search to a watchlist so you can keep an eye on new, relevant posts as they are published.

IceRocket makes it really simple to refine your search to a specific timeframe by giving you links for "Today Only", "Past Week", "Past Month" and "Custom". This is especially useful when a pattern has just been released and you know that any older posts using those keywords are likely using them in a different context. IceRocket's blog trend tool could also be fun if you are a designer who wants to check on how many bloggers are posting about your pattern over time.

Google Blog Search offers the same advanced search tools you know from their regular search engine. It's in beta right now, so who knows what extra enhancements they might add to it. I think Google's biggest strength is their familiar interface and reliability.

In terms of freshness, I'd say that Technorati and IceRocket have a bit of an edge. This is because they both encourage bloggers to ping them when they publish a new post. When the sites are working properly you'll often see posts show up in the search only minutes after they were published. For this reason, I use these two sites quite frequently. Google uses their crawler, and doesn't seem to accept pings, which means they are a wee bit behind.

I wrote this review from the perspective of my experiences with the blog searches I discussed. You can find more authoritative information about blog search tools at Napsterization. For additional blog search information from the point of view of another knit blogger, check out Lucia's blogging category on The Knitting Fiend.

Comments

[yahaira]

Ill have to start using that technorati, google blog search has kinda left me empty sometimes.
so what did you find on forecast?

[lyn]

I normally google my searches but technorati's a nifty tool too. I haven't used icerocket before though and it looks interesting. Like you, I like searching for other bloggers who have knitted or are knitting a particular project.

[Julsey]

Wow, Amy - nice work! My mind thinks like this about internet searches as well. I'm also such a blog dork and check to see who links to me, and where interest is coming from, but i haven't done a comparison! This is great! Thanks :)

[Renee]

Interesting post - thanks for the info.

[Blake Rhodes (IceRocket team)]

thanks for using IceRocket.

Blake Rhodes

[lucia]

Interesting comparison. It's nice to know how to search properly. I love the "pattern X" and "sucks" tip! Now, I'm going to have to test that out. . .

[Melissa]

Interesting Amy, thanks!

[carrie m]

thank you so much -- that's so useful. did your research help you decide what to knit up next?