The blog community is buzzing over Yahoo removing blog search, including removing the Yahoo News integration of blog search or even accessing blog search at Yahoo. What is up? Why did Yahoo remove it? The only official quote I have seen was captured by Greg Jarboe at SEO PR, where he has a quote from Brian Nelson of Yahoo who told Greg that this is a temporary thing. In an email sent from Brian to Greg, Brian said that Blog search has “temporarily taken offline to retool the offering.” Brian also adds that Yahoo “might be thinking bigger picture when it comes to blog content.”
So, don’t panic, we know blog results have been removed from Yahoo News, we know you cannot access Yahoo Blog search, we know your blog search RSS feeds are not returning results – but now Yahoo has left itself open to hit the blog community with something huge.
Why didn’t Yahoo say anything about this prior to pulling the plug? Why didn’t they issue a “maintenance announcement” prior to removing Yahoo blog search? These are very good questions. I do not have the answer to them. But some speculate that Yahoo pulled blog search due to a “rampant splog problem.”
Time will tell. But I would expect blog search back soon from Yahoo.