Is Google Adding Blog Search to Google.com?

Once-a-month blogger, occasional web designer and UK based family guy Andy Boyd has posted a screen capture of blog search results appearing on the front page of a regular Google web search. A number of other bloggers have picked this up but no one else has been able to reproduce Boyd’s experience. It’s a believable scenario because Google recently added blog search to Google News last month and to Google Alerts four days later. The UK, where Boyd lives, is frequently a testing ground for new Google features right around the corner.

Obviously real estate even on the very bottom of the first page of Google results would be great for the blogosphere. If Google Blogsearch can’t get rid of all the splogs in its search results though, it could lead to some level of backlash against blogs in general. I don’t know anyone who’s as good at excluding splogs as Ask/Bloglines – they only display blog search results from blogs that at least one Bloglines user has subscribed to and they have algorithms to prevent gaming of that safeguard as well.

If Google really does take the bold step of including blog search on the front page of its web search results, it will be the first major search engine to do so. Blogs are included in general search results (see the search results for gay men social networking for example) and may have such good search engine optimization natively that they don’t need a special place on the page – but it could only help broaden exposure to the medium.