Google is moving in so many directions, it can be somewhat difficult to keep track of all the services and tools offered by this premium search engine. For the seasoned webmaster as well as the ordinary surfer, keeping a clear picture of what Google is offering is sometimes a little overwhelming.

Recently, there has been a deluge of new products from Google. If you hit the 'more' button on the Google Home page, you will see a smattering of Google services and tools. Including Desktop 2, Print, Maps, Google Earth... you can even search and browse mail-order catalogs.

Now comes Blog Search - where Internet users can now search blogs for their information. This is a welcomed service, especially for bloggers. Google's embracing of blogs started with the purchase of Blogger.com and got sidetracked with the 'costly' argument over which syndication standard to use. Most favored RSS while Google promoted the Atom standard for its blog feeds.

Blogs are online journals where ordinary people give opinions, information and links on topics that matter to them. These topics can be anything under the sun: from politics to needlepoint to corporate blogs to your local school's basketball team. Blogs give a real insight into what ordinary surfers believe and feel about a subject.

It's an instant snapshot of our world in words and pictures -- but mostly words.

Blogs are often associated with RSS because RSS is the syndication standard that sends out the blog's content in little snippets to all interested parties. Subscribers to these blogs can read these headlines in News Readers or Aggregators and then click on the links to get more information. Keep in mind, the original acronym for RSS is 'Rich Site Summary', but that meaning has been somewhat replaced by the major benefit of RSS which is 'Really Simple Syndication'.

Many browsers are now coming with an RSS reader already built-in, such as the popular Mozilla's Firefox browser. Microsoft's new Longhorn version of Windows will have RSS built into its operating system.

Recently Google has embraced RSS in its Desktop 2 program and in the XML powered Google Sitemaps. Now comes Blog Search, a way to search all the information in these blogs. In the past, most bloggers have used the Technorati site to search blogs as well as RSS search offered by MSN and Yahoo.

Some things you should know about Google Blog Search:

1. How to access it? You can use the blog Search site www.blogsearch.google.com or www.search.blogger.com You may also use the Navigational Bar on any BlogSpot blog, plus you will also be able to access it from your Blogger Dashboard. The Blogger Navbar gives you the option of searching within the current blog or searching all blogs.

Major criticism -- Google has not placed a link on its home (front) page of Google search; as blogs and blogging becomes even more popular maybe this error will be fixed.

2. Who's included? It should be noted that Google will index all blogs using a site feed (RSS or Atom) and you can get your Blog indexed just by using an automatic pinging service offered by such sites as www.weblogs.com

Please Note -- Your older posts may not be present in search results, Google started indexing feeds around June, 2005. Older posts may be included at a later date.

3. What search operators or query words are supported? You can use these standard Google Search modifiers and Google will restrict your results -- link:, site:, intitle: plus new ones for Blog Search -- inblogtitle:, inposttitle:, inpostauthor:, and blogurl:

4. Can I subscribe to search results? Yes, just use the News Aggregator of your choice and subscribe to the feeds at the bottom of the results page, then you can be automatically updated as new posts come online.

5. Can I use Safesearch? Yes, Google lets you filter out any unwanted sites.

More information on Blog Search click here: http://www.google.com/help/about_blogsearch.html

Blog Search is a great extension to the Google Search Empire, it will give surfers access to a greater range of material. No doubt, this is not the end of what Google has to offer to its loyal followers. Persistent speculation and rumors abound, it just won't go away, rumors that Google is NOT only designing its own browser (it owns the domain gbrowser.com) but its own operating system.

But why stop there -- if you're dreaming of the perfect search -- you must go further. Google must go further!

And since we're dreaming...

How about a Google delivered Instant Search embedded in a Google RSS Powered Operating System on a Google designed ultra-portable notebook computer with a wireless cell phone modem, accessible anywhere in the world...

...wake me up when it arrives!