I've added a new widget to my blog, one that you might find very useful. Michelle over at Scribbit has developed a custom search engine that I'm really excited about, and she's given me permission to post her description of it for you:

It's a custom search engine powered by Google that searches select blogs on parenting, crafts, cooking, gardening and blogs by women. Normally when you search for a word or phrase Google returns millions of results, displaying the most popular based on their magic algorithms. For my custom search engine I have narrowed Google's parameters so that a search here will only return results from the blogs I've specified.

What does this mean?

Say you're writing a post on children watching television and would like to add to what others have written on the subject, by searching with this custom search engine you'd learn what Thrifty Mommy, Play Library, Rocks in My Dryer, Izzy Mom or the other thousand blogs on parenting have to say on the subject.

If you're writing a post on sibling rivalry or how to deal with it and want to link to other posts on the subject, searching in my custom search engine searches your favorite blogs all at once and gives a more manageable number of results specific to your subject matter than Google could provide. Linking to other blogs just got easier.

But it doesn't stop there, if you want to find ideas for encouraging family exercise, children's birthday parties, lunchbox tips or decorating cupcakes--my custom search engine will filter out more of the sites that don't match what you want and will give you more of what your fellow bloggers and their readers have to say on the subject.

If you want to hear what other blogs are saying about Anna Nicole, Brittney, James Cameron, Lost or Grey's Anatomy or if you want to to connect with blogs that are on a specific subject matter--regional blogs, parenting blogs, book review blogs, product review blogs--this search engine will get you closer to what other blogs are saying than Google typically can.

Go ahead and give it a try. Type in "sleep deprivation," "herb gardening," "picky eaters," "kid crafts," "celebrity moms," "breastfeeding," "expat," "kid crafts" or "homeschooling" and see the results that come up. Pretty slick, huh?

You'll find the MomBlog search in my lefthand sidebar, right above my nightstand. Enjoy!

And thanks so much, Michelle!

Labels: Blogstuff, Search