Different kinds of sources, different significance (Score 1)

some of these blogs actually contain some pretty handy info from time to time [my emphasis]

yeh, that's true, but let's face it - the vast majority are complete and utter drivel and manage to make a cereal packet look like an interesting read.

Hmm. Sounds like the rest of the internet, really! Search engines before Google, perhaps?

I'm getting two fairly strong messages here. Firstly, there is a need for a useful search mechanism for retrieving the gold from the mess of Blog information. (And other forum-based or otherwise ephemeral content.)

The second message is that these ephemeral sources do not follow the same rules as other sites. My (normal, non-blog) website contains strategy articles and so-on for a computer game (Heroes of Might and Magic); that material is neither going to change nor to move, and I link to places that I do not expect to change or move, and to the best places I know of, rather than wherever I encountered things; and MapHaven is not part of an incestuous web of linking. Whereas with blogs, their links are distributed rather more freely; and the often deleterious effect on Google searches has been noted. And people here are also complaining of archived forum posts or web-message-boards polluting Google results with opinions rather than results.

I think it is only sensible that Google, in its quest to provide the most useful links for its users' searches, handle the different kinds of sources differently. Frankly, I'd be surprised and disappointed if they didn't improve their methods in this sort of way sooner or later. (Sooner or later someone else would - and Google would probably fall from its pinnacle as the most used search engine.)

Rachel