Thing 3

Thing 3 deals with searching Technorati.com and another blog search engine using the same search terms and comparing results. For my second blog search engine, I used Google Blog Search. An initial comparison of the two engines makes me favor Google over Technorati. The layout and user interface are much cleaner on Google, and the ads that are present on Technorati really distract from the overall look of the page. I felt that Technorati looked like a much cheaper site, maybe even bordering on spammy. Google's site was more professional and clean, and I preferred it based on initial impression.

I searched for "board games" in both engines. Technorati returned 251 results in blogs and 153 results in posts. Google Blog search returned over 1 million. Wow. WOW! What a huge difference. I wonder what accounts for such a gigantic variance in the result numbers between the two search engines. I liked the way the results were returned on both sites. Technorati showed a screenshot of each blog next to a short sentence from the blog. Google showed a typical Google results listing of text with a headline linked above a snippet of the actual blog entry. The included images on the Technorati search were appealing, though I am still drawn to the clean page on Google. Maybe I'm just biased since Google is my main search engine of choice in everyday life. Yes, I find something I like and stick with it although in this case it would probably be good to venture out and see what other search engines have to offer...

Features of Google Blog Search that I like: ability to arrange/filter results by last update and the advanced blog search and preference options to really pinpoint what you're looking for. I find myself extremely turned off and distracted by the ads on the Technorati site almost to the point that I don't even want to explore it anymore.

I suppose one of the positive aspects of Technorati, as far as the results go, is that fewer results means less time spent going through them all to really find what you're looking for. A million results for "board games" on Google Blog Search is definitely overwhelming to say the least while 251 is a much more manageable number. Overall, however, Google Blog Search gets my vote for the best of the two based on its cleaner look and interface. For anyone familiar with Google, the Blog Search page looks quite similar, and that brings a sense of comfort and reliability without the distracting ads and colors used by Technorati.