Blog search engines. Legitimizing or marginalizing bloggers?

• Tweet
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  Pin It
  

• Tweet
• 
  

San Francisco, California – Google has been quietly beta testing a search engine for blogs for a while now, apparently in response to demands from bloggers and Google users who wanted a more effective tool for searching blogs separately from other sources (and no doubt somewhat in response to the popularity of Technorati, Feedster at al.)

Given Google’s dominance in search, it strikes me that this beta test actually represents a strange twist in the blogging plot. After all, haven’t we all grown used to the refrain that personal publishing will supplant (or at least force new forms of) mainstream media? So doesn’t separating blog search results from the rest of the Web’s searchable content go against that trend and potentially marginalize – rather than legitimize – blogs?

While addressing a group of PR students at Cal.State University today, a colleague and I discussed the suggestion that PR departments should be working with influential bloggers in much the same way as they might work with influential reporters. After all, if readers and customers aren’t discerning between types of news sources, then why should corporations?

But if what readers of Web-based content really want – as Google’s move suggests – is to separate blog-based content from the rest of the Web, then perhaps we’re seeing the first signs of a blog backlash and there-in some support for those who contend that there is more hype than substance in the blogosphere. Time will tell. David.