Blogger's Navbar Search doesn't work - but I know the answer.

So this problem has been ongoing for over a year already and I'm pretty pissed off that Google's Blogger team has not been more diligent in fixing the problem. If you do not know what I am talking about, look up at the very top of this page - that's the navbar.

This problem has affected so many people and I'm one of them. Unfortunately, although Google's Blogger team has said that they will put this as their first priority for year 2010, we have not seen any improvements whatsoever.

Despite all this, I've recently found the answer to this problem... as well as a FIX! I've posted it on Blogger's Help Forum but I don't think any of the Blogger employees has read it yet. If you look on page 5 and beyond, I'm cheeseburgirl. I wouldn't be surprised if they overlooked it either since so many people are just posting up their complain letters to blogger and not "real" answers to the problem.

OK, let's get to the main point. So it all started out as a discovery...

I'm not sure if this is a coincidence or not, but I noticed that all the entries that I can search up on my blog, are the same posts that Google Blog Search have indexed. Now let me make it clear: Google Blog Search, is NOT the same as Google Search.

Unfortunately, it seems like Google Blog Search has missed some of the older postings, According to their FAQ, they only index blogs by their site feeds so they "will only include items that have been posted since it started indexing a given blog." They are "working on ways to include older posts as well".

Anyway, before Google Blog Search has indexed my blog, only the 3 most recent posts were search-able using the navbar search function. Now that Google Blog Search has started indexing my blog, the navbar search function can only find the posts that blog search has indexed!

I'll let you check this out yourself....
This is my blog: http://cheeseburgirl.blogspot.com

These are the blog entries that have been indexed from my blog in Google Blog Search:
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=blogurl%3Acheeseburgirl.blogspot.com&btnG=Search+Blogs

If you search any of the terms that are in those posts, they will show up! (e.g., "hiking", "experience", "blogger", etc.)

However, if you search for the term "hockey" or "nails (which I have written multiple posts about on this blog) using Blogger's navbar search function, you won't be able to find it. Coincidentally, these posts are ALSO *not* indexed by Google's Blog Search.

Now I have noticed that Google Blog Search has been indexing a couple more of my older posts on my other blog lately, so I don't know... maybe the term "hockey" or "nails" will be search-able on this blog one day.

How do I add my Blog to Google's Blog Search?

Go here: http://blogsearch.google.com/ping and submit your blog url (e.g. http://your-blog-name.blogspot.com)

How do I add my OLD posts to Google's Blog Search?

Now I'm not sure about this... I have noticed that Google's Blog Search has been indexing a couple more of my older posts from my other blog into their Blog Search engine. But I don't know if that's because I've been submitting my posts individually or they are doing it on their own. But this is what I do. I hit up Google's Blog Search Ping and submit in the URL to the blog post I want to add (e.g. http://your-blog-name.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-blog-post-title.html). Now keep in mind that it will not get added immediately.

Now isn't that amazing?

I think I deserve something here... LIKE A JOB AT GOOGLE! For all you incompetent Blogger employees, I can't believe you let ME, a girl who doesn't even understand the Blogger infrastructure, to figure out this problem! You all deserve to lose your jobs. Like, seriously.