I spent some time over the weekend working on my blog search tool Blog Hiking. I’m happy to report it’s more powerful than before and has a couple of new features.

Blog Hiking launched last November. (More details here.) I wanted a different way to explore WordPress blogs because I found WordPress’ search option boring (sorry WordPress.)

As you may have guessed, Blog Hiking searches WordPress via a hiking theme. Search results come along with information on “elevation” (timeline), “nearby sites” (blogs represented most in the search results, the contents of which can be individually explored) and “connecting trails” (words which appear most frequently in search results, which you can build into a new search query.) I find these additional tools for exploring let me dive deeper into results.

I have adjusted the search so it should provide more and better results. I’ve also added the option to load more results (before it stopped at 40) and the ability to mute sites from search results in case you come across results that are overwhelming / spammy.

As always, Blog Hiking is free to use and free of ads.

I’ve got a bunch of touch-up / tweak work to do with my sites. I think RSS Gizmos will be next, and then I’ve got some upgrading to do on Local Search America…