Ask.com is launching a new blog search service that aims to capitalize on the fervent interest in the topics and debates covered by blogs that aren't easy to find on traditional online news sites.

Instead of crawling the Web for blog postings to build an index to search like others do, Ask.com is using the index already created and updated by subscribers to its popular Bloglines site for searching, subscribing to, creating and sharing blogs and news feeds.

"This will reduce (blog) spam significantly" and enable Ask.com to offer fresher blog search results than competitors, said Doug Leeds, a vice president of products at Ask.com. Search engines that trawl the Web for blog postings aren't necessarily getting the freshest content, particularly given the fact that blogs tend to be speedier posters than traditional media sites, he added.

Read the full story (Cnet News)