Google Blog Search Broken?: Sorted by Date
April 27, 2012 by Paul McKeever
Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Google’s “Blog Search” is broken. Specifically, when you click on the “Sorted by Date” link, you are supposed to see your blog search results displayed according to the recency/newness of the blog posts, with the most recent blog posts appearing highest in the list. Time sorting is not working, which means that, if you are using google’s “Sorted by Date” to look for the most blog recent entry relating to your search string, you might not find the most recent entries listed where they should be: at the top of the list.
As the most recent example personally affecting me, consider that I yesterday posted a blog entry partially about a politician named Tim Hudak. The title of the blog entry is “Hudak’s PCs in Conflict of Interest with Role as Official Opposition?”. This morning, with the sort set for “Sorted by Relevance” I did a google blog search for: “Paul McKeever” Hudak
There it was, my blog entry, right at the top of the listings. See the screen capture below:
However, I then clicked on “Sorted by Date”, and things got weird. It listed all results in proper chronological order with one exception: my post, which it shoved several entries down in the list. Even though google blog search recognizes that my Hudak blog entry was published 15 hours ago, it wedged the blog entry way down the list between the July 22, 2011 post by gritchik, and the June 28, 2011 post by Warren. (see screen capture below):
Huh?
Come on google. We’re doing our bit to provide you with content so that you have somewhere to display AdSense ads. Please fix this bug.
UPDATE!!
After posting the blog entry above, my Hudak article disappeared from the spot between gritchik and Warren. It’s gone, who knows where? To make matters worse, this blog entry (the one you’re reading) now appears (in the “Sorted by Date” results page) wedged between a September 20, 2011 blog entry by brian.lilley and a July 25, 2011 post by Christine. Here, look:
So what am I to take from this? Is it something specific to posts made within the last several hours? Is it something related to my blog in particular?
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