DISQUS

israel_lheureux · 6 months ago

Hmm, when I was just at Rick's blog, searching for "louis" returned several results, but "louisgray" or "@louisgray" came up with nothing, either in the This Blog, or Linked From Here tabs. Despite the fact, of couse, that your twitter URL contains louisgray and you definitely link to his blog.

Unfortunately, the comments you leave with your blogger profile aren't credited to louisgray.com but http://www.blogger.com/profile/0067564266533941... (good luck remembering to search for that) so that part is a bit of a bugaboo.

Still, I really like the display-in-div that the blogger team is doing. I think that was a bold move for them to integrate results inline, and that should be rewarded. And FWIW, blogger seems faster to me in the admin tasks than wordpress.com or hosted wordpress. But most of all, I'm glad to see that the blogger team is developing their app further.

And Lijit has to take credit for leading the right direction, too. It must be flattering to be followed. I'm eager to see their next version and where they take it. Bottom line is that when tools are improved, bloggers win!

rklau · 6 months ago

Israel - You have the links in reverse. The way the custom search gadget works is to look at sites linked *from* my blog - so if I haven't linked to twitter.com/louisgray (I haven't), then searches on "louisgray" will fail. The search widget doesn't take into account links from other sites *to* my blog - a neat idea, but outside the scope of the gadget.

israel_lheureux · 6 months ago

Rick, sorry--please excuse my typo.

I meant to say, yes, you did actually link to twitter.com/louisgray/status/ but that the gadget doesn't seem to be picking up text in the URLs.

Check it out:
This post, http://tins.rklau.com/2009/03/eight-lessons-lea...
has a 4 separate links to pages with louisgray in the URL
- http://twitter.com/louisgray/statuses/1330196523
- http://twitter.com/louisgray/statuses/1325740834
- http://twitter.com/louisgray/statuses/1330196523
- http://twitter.com/louisgray/statuses/1344547411

I would have thought the search gadget find those examples of "louisgray", but it only seems to find text when it's part of the domain (i.e. when you link to louisgray.com).

No biggie. I still like the display-in-div part very much :)

rklau · 6 months ago

Shows what I know. :)

Thanks for the specifics - I'll check back with the search team and report back.

micah · 6 months ago

Louis, It was hard to read your post under the lighting in the hidden bunker Lijit now resides in.

We are excited to see that other companies are understanding that bloggers are demanding more than just default search.

That bloggers live in a world that is populated by more than their blogs.

That bloggers are generating content beyond their blogs and are developing expertise and trust in a way (and speed) that is unprecedented.

Innovation begets innovation, and as we continue to lead the market in trusted blog search, I fully expect other companies (both new and old) to enter the space attempting to build on our success.

I think to some degree, you missed the point. People are now demanding more than a search box that returns keyword/pagerank based site-specific results. People want to know more about the bloggers they are searching; and bloggers want to showcase more of their expertise and content, which spread across the web.

Same goes for "real time" search. Google is late to the game with "real time" search. Will they develop a product that is as dominate as their standard search? Who knows.

Blog search is heating up because it has become more important to return a trusted result from a trusted source, than the single answer that one search engine's algorithm believes is the correct answer.

Every blogger is an expert about something, and when I do my searching, I would like to allow that blogger's expertise to apply the context to the search. That way the algorithm knows if I am search for seal (the animal), or seal (the singer), or seal (of Colorado)...

What you see from Google is their first step in that direction, and frankly that excites us at Lijit.

Louis Gray · 6 months ago

Micah, absolutely appreciate your well thought-out response. Rick Klau of Blogger likewise thinks I missed the point, which absolutely happens on occasion. My concern is less that you're able to differentiate, but more so that a good number of people will look at what is offered, and say "good enough", or not want to post two separate blog search engines on their site. Is there room for me to have both widgets here? I would assume I am going to choose one or the other.

micah · 6 months ago

Do you want to monetize your blog? Then Lijit give you more options better. Do you want to have integrated Google results? then the Blogger widget works better.

Sheesh, as I write this, I guess the answer is: YES there are use cases for using both, and YES, there are use cases for using one.

But isnt choice grand?