The update is all about tracking what’s hot around the blogosphere and presenting stories ranked in 11 different categories according to how many other blogs are linking to those stories. You can then drill down and see the blogs that link to the story and a chart of how many did over time.

It isn’t a new concept – TechMeme, Technorati, Blogs.com and others have been doing it for years – however what strikes me here is just how comprehensive Google’s results are. While TechMeme only indexes a limited number of blogs Google’s BlogSearch has been indexing millions (?) of blogs for some time now and will be able to provide a different perspective to what is happening in the wider blogosphere (instead of just the cool gang).

It’ll be interesting to see how their results compare over the longer term and how they’ll deal with spammers and those trying to manipulate the service – but at a first impression I like what I see. I just wish there was a way to subscribe to the top stories in each category (I’m surprised that there is not… or am I missing it?).

Further Reading

• ReadWrite Web’s first impressions
• Google BlogSearch FAQ

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Google BlogSearch Adds Meme Tracking