Turns out the default search options on the blogs network are not as powerful as we’d like them to be. That is why we explored new options and integrated Google custom search. What does this mean for bloggers?

First of all this will only affect blogs that provide their readers with a way to search their blog. Many of you actually do not do that. If you’d like to offer this, a search is simply a Widget that can be added to your pages.

If users now enter their search term their, the results page will look slightly different and hopefully provide accurate search results. A new feature though is the link to searching the whole network. That is right, one can now search the whole blogs network with one simple search bar.

This is such a great feature that we included it in the header bar as well. And because the site-wide search also searches the wiki it offers users a convenient way to quickly search the content they are looking for.

If a reader uses a Widget on your blog to search, they’ll first be shown results only for your blog, and be presented a link to easily search everything.  If a reader uses the search box in the very top bar, they’ll immediately search everything.