Blog search engine Feedster has had the following notice on its frontpage for at least a few weeks now:
There is no sign of life on the site and the Feedster blog has already been killed off (the big 404 in the sky).
In terms of the blog search market in general, Feedster has been struggling for 3+ years now – this RWW post in July 2005 shows how Feedster was falling behind Technorati even then. Now Feedster seems to be, if not in the DeadPool, then at least in the PurgatoryPool. PubSub was another victim in this market.
Nowadays, the blog search market seems to be made up of 3 main players – Google Blog Search, Technorati and Bloglines/Ask.com – and a lot of smaller players such as Zuula and Blogdigger. Personally I still use Technorati a few times a week, and the search function of Google Reader. I also am a heavy user of Google’s main search, which I find brings up good blog results (i.e. often I don’t see the need for a specialist blog search engine). I did a quick poll of the other RWW writers. Josh said he still uses Technorati sometimes, but also Google Blog search. Marshall said that he uses Ask.com for minimizing spam, relies heavily on feeds with subscribers in Bloglines, and uses Technorati too. He finds that Google
Blog Search is good for speed.
What blog search engine do you use – and why?
