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Accepting Volunteers for Personal Finance Blog Search Engine

Posted by Sean | Posted under Announcements, Blogs | August 15, 2008

EDIT: the process has changed slightly, “please see this post on Plan B“

In May, I created a custom search engine of personal finance blog using Google CSE.

http://www.financialramblings.com/search/

It is not the biggest or even the best, at this time, but I wanted something I could keep current if necessary. Niche search engines are useful when researching a big post or creating a new tool. Sometimes, you find that the wheel has already been created, and you can move on to other things. They also come in handy when you are trying to remember who said what.

The problem with custom search engines is they go stale quickly, almost immediately. As a new blogger, I can see that my blog will never be added to any of the existing search engines. They are set in stone. Since I might need to search my archives in conjunction with the rest of the pfblogs, none of these search engines are ideal for me. If you started blogging in 2008, they might not work for you, either.

So I’m going to try and mix things up, tinker with the formula, create a fresher engine. The first way to break with tradition is by accepting volunteers. If you go to the page for "PF Blogosphere" at Google, you will see that it is enabled for volunteers. If you are a pfblogger (and easily distinguishable from a splogger) :-) you are welcome to apply.

Why volunteer?

If your site is not in the search engine already, it is the most surefire route to inclusion. All I ask is you contribute a handful of other sites at the same time. That way the index becomes more useful for everyone. It really helps because no matter how hard I try, I’m bound to have blind spots, places I would not think to look. With more eyes and more expertise it could get interesting.

Besides inclusion, contributors will get link love, either in follow-up posts about the project’s progress, or maybe in other posts, just by me being more aware of your site.

If you are interested, let me know in the comments, or via the contact form.

(You can also apply at Google, although I’m not sure that will always be enabled.)

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9 Comments so far
  1. Russ August 15, 2008 9:58 am

    Great idea, Sean. I’m in. Have a great weekend.

  2. Miranda August 16, 2008 8:27 am

    What a great idea! I’d love to be “in.” I clicked on the “volunteer” link, and all I got was a message that you would be contacted. What else do I need to do?

  3. Sean August 16, 2008 9:02 am

    @Russ - cool!

    @Miranda - I don’t know yet. :-) We’ll find out when I get back Monday. One way or another, I’ll be approving applications or sending invitations to you two.

  4. Sean August 18, 2008 2:29 pm

    Okay, I saw and approved both applications. So far, so good. Only bummer is the admin panel… you can’t sort sites, or view > 20 at once.

    Here is the normal editing procedure:

    - Open two browser windows to the “Sites” tab.
    - In one window, click “Add Sites” button then “Include sites in bulk” link
    - In the other, use “URL Contains” to see if a site is already included.
    (Otherwise, Google will keep adding duplicates.)

    However, I uploaded spreadsheet of the index, hopefully that help with the startup. (Although it is still a good idea to search and make sure you are not adding duplicates, since the spreadsheet will get out of sync.)

    BTW, the two main formats:
    1.) *.example.com
    2.) example.blogspot.com/*

  5. Sean August 18, 2008 4:33 pm

    Oh, I forgot to mention: “personal finance blogs” are not alway easy to define, just try your best. I’d avoid sites that are 100% about investing, for example, especially about individual stocks. But if you have a site with 50% investing theory and 50% general personal finance, I think that is more in line with expectations.

  6. MoneyEnergy August 21, 2008 3:39 pm

    I’d love to help out with this. Sean you’re very innovative technologically - this is great!

  7. MoneyEnergy August 21, 2008 3:41 pm

    If I can still help out (i.e., if you still need help), where do I “apply?” I clicked on the CSE link, but it doesn’t seem to be the right place. thanks!

  8. Sean August 22, 2008 8:19 am

    @MoneyEnergy - per the new “Plan B” procedure, you can just email sites to me, and I’ll add them to Google. To minimize confusion, I’m removing/declining contributors in Google’s system, so do NOT take it personally. :-) We’ve got maybe a half-dozen contributors and a really big update on the way.

    Also, the list of sites currently indexed is available in this text file (pfblogsearchengine.txt)

  9. billy August 23, 2008 12:26 pm

    This sounds like a great idea. If there’s anyway that I could be a part of this please let me know.