Search The Gardening Blogosphere

As you guys may or may not know, I make my actual living by helping people figure out how to make their sites better (no, I am not a web designer). One of the ways that I do that is to look at how well a site does in search engines, which isn’t always easy as there are literally millions of sites listed in search engines. Being listed well can be frustrating for a website owner. It is kind of along the lines of that plant you really, really want that croaks dead as dead every winter, no matter what you do. Search engines can be like that.

And the frustration level does not stop there. Having millions of sites to choose from makes things frustrating for people searching too. Think about the last few times you tried to find the answer to a question. Did you find it right away? Did it take you a few tries? Did you find it at all? I am willing to bet you don’t always find exactly what you needed. It is because of all those damn extra websites.   Who the hell needs a website on dancing hamsters or iphone blenders anyway?  Well, maybe we do need them.   They are pretty damn funny when you are drunk.

Anyhoo, wouldn’t it be nice to search just gardening blogs for the answer to your gardening questions? Hundreds of gardening tips and tricks are tucked away on our blogs and we just need to be able to get at them.

And so, the clever and only somewhat not-evil people over at Google came up with Custom Search… Er… Scratch that. It is now Co-Op search… Beta. Okay, so they are still working on the name and some bugs, but they are getting there.

I made a Google Co-Op search that will search only gardening blogs, well at least the gardening blogs on my blog roll (adding new sites any time someone lets me know they want to be added).

The really cool thing about the big G is that they add new pages to their listing like lightening, Speedy Gonzalez fast. All the words the gardening blogosphere has produced is now at your fingertips. You just have to search. You can also add it to you own blog, if you would like.

By the way, this is different from Mr. Brown Thumb’s Gardening Search. His includes many Gardening related sites (like those University Extension Services you are suppose to talk to but never do). His is very helpful as well.   But mine is only for the gardening blogosphere.

The only downfall is that there are some ads. Can’t get rid of those unless I cough up $100 to Google. I don’t make that much from this blog (but donations are always appreciated and well spent on lovely gardening toys and plants). Just think of them as like the commercials on your TV, you don’t need to really look at them. You just have to find what you are looking for.