Subscribing to Blog Search Results

Back at the beginning of this chapter I talked a little about how Google got its blog search results, by using RSS feeds. Well, Google uses this same technology to feed you updates to the postings you find on the search results page. That's right, Google syndicates its blog search results via RSS and Atom.

Note

It should come as no big surprise that Google offers its own feed aggregator site called Google Reader. Learn more in the "Reading Blog Feeds with Google Reader" section, later in this chapter.

When you subscribe to an RSS or Atom search results feed, Google automatically notifies you of any new postings that match your search query. The notification occurs in the feed reader or feed aggregator of your choice; as new search results are found, they show up as new postings within the feed.

To subscribe to a feed of search results, follow these steps:

1.	Conduct your blog search as normal from the Google Blog Search main page.
2.	When the search results appear, scroll to the bottom of the search results page, as shown in Figure 6.9, and then right-click either the 10 Results or 100 Results link for Atom or RSS. (The first link displays the 10 most recent search results in your feed reader; the second option displays the 100 most recent results.) Figure 6.9. Right-click a link to copy the feed URL into your feed reader or aggregator.
3.	From the pop-up menu, select Copy Shortcut (or Copy Link Location in Firefox). This copies the URL for the selected feed.
4.	Move to your feed reader program or feed aggregator website and paste this URL into the appropriate "new feed URL" box.

Caution

Always check to see which type of feeds your feed reader or aggregator supports. To be safe, use the RSS feed; more programs and websites support RSS than do Atom.

Once the URL has been added to your list of feeds, any new postings that match your search query will now appear in your feed reader or aggregator. (Figure 6.10 shows a Google Blog Search feed in the Bloglines feed aggregator.) It's a great way to keep up-to-date on information pertaining to a search of interest!

Figure 6.10. Viewing a Google Blog Search feed in Bloglines.