Nifty research trick: Workaround for limited Google blog search

Okay, this is a little annoying. When Google changed their search format on Blogger (top left) to allow you to search all blogs in addition to just the Blogger account you're on, they somehow changed the search algorithm to give very limited results from internal blog searches. For example, a search on Grits for the phrase "drug task force" yields just 22 items, a fraction of what I've written.

That's perturbing, because one of the most important uses for Grits to me is archiving information in a searchable format from which I (and others, but hey, do you think I'm doing this for you?!) can easily retrieve it.

There's an easy solution to get a full site search on a Blogger-based blog, though: Google's "site:" function. To search narrowly on any website, go to www.google.com and type in:

search terms site:blogname.blogspot.com

So, for example, to search on Grits for information about drug task forces, you would type:

"drug task force site:gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com"

... which gives you these comprehensive search results. That trick works not just on blogspot sites, but for searching any specific website. Happy searching.