Google Fixes Link Operator In Blog Search

A couple weeks ago, we reported that Google fixed the blogroll indexing algorithm in Google Blog Search, but has not yet fixed the link operator, which returned links found in blogrolls. Google has recently updated the link operator for Blog Search to not count links in the blogroll for the link operator command in blog search.

As I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning, Jeremy Hylton of Google said Google Blog Search “now drops most or all of the links that occur in the blogroll or in other parts of the page that are just boilerplate.”

This issue dates back to early November when Google Blog Search began indexing full text of the blog post, including, in some cases, the blogroll and boilerplate portions of the site. Over the course of now and then, Google has been working on tweaking these detectors to unique content and pushed out a major update a couple weeks ago and now has updated the link operator (i.e. link:www.example.com).

My early tests show very positive results, but if you find any issues, please let Jeremy know in this Google Groups thread.