How to Search Only for Blog Posts on Google

Google used to have a great feature called Blog Search that allowed you to limit your search results to just blog posts. Unfortunately, Google discontinued it in May, 2014.

The good news is that although it’s completely hidden, you can still do a blog post search by following this link:

https://www.google.com/?tbm=blg

You may want to bookmark that — you won’t find a way to activate it anywhere on Google’s search results pages.

While searches from the link above will show the most “relevant” results from all dates first, I prefer to use this modified version that sorts the results by date:

https://www.google.com/?tbm=blg&tbs=sbd:1

I won’t speculate why Google chose to eliminate the ability to easily filter search results to just blog posts, but I will say that it can be an incredibly useful tool for bloggers, podcasters and other content marketers.

I run a popular hobby-related website. I always monitor my social media feeds for interesting content to share with my followers, but sometimes it feels like I’m stuck in a bubble seeing the same stuff from the same people. Using a Google blog search gives me a chance to scan through the latest posts to see if I’m missing anything important in my niche — or discover something that I can share with others that they haven’t seen a dozen times already.

I also like to reach out and introduce myself to new bloggers who are creating good content in my niche. Sometimes I invite them to guest post and they often accept in order to gain more exposure. They’re usually quite appreciative that I’ve taken the time to contact them.

To help discover new content from people that I don’t regularly follow, I’ve created a custom search bookmark that I visit every few days.

So, let’s say your niche is fly fishing:

flyfishing1

You can create a link that will always give you the latest blog posts that contain the term “fly fishing” by bookmarking this link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=”fly+fishing”&tbm=blg&tbs=sbd:1

When I want to see the latest results, I just click the bookmark in my browser and there they are.

To create your own custom link, just replace “fly+fishing” for “basket+weaving” or whatever your niche may be.

So even though Blog Search has been discontinued, you don’t need to search for alternatives. Just use this little trick!

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Matt Thomas

As a successful online entrepreneur since 1999, I'm happy to offer you my personal experience and practical expert advice to help you start and grow your online business. Contact me or follow @insidersecrets.

6 Comments

  1. Sandeep March 25, 2016
  2. Andrea April 15, 2016
  3. Steve Morton May 20, 2016
  4. Nitin January 12, 2017
  5. victor November 5, 2019
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