Slashdot just reported the beta Google Blog Search. The FAQ tells us that the googlebot will rely on blogs’ RSS feed to get updates. So if a blog does not publish a feed, it will not be listed (at least, not until Google give you a manual application form).
It relies on feeds, it also provides feeds. You can find Atom and RSS feeds at the bottom of any search result you run with Google Blog Search, so we can now get updates of what we frequently search for.
Besides the feeds, I haven’t seen any special about this new Google tool. I gave it a test run by searching my real name, and got this blog listed separately on the top of all results, labelled as “Related blogs”. But to the best of my recollection, I have never give my real name on this blog. On the contrary, I couldn’t find this blog amongst the results when I use my usual web alias as keyword.
The FAQ does not say whether blogs hosted by Blogger.com get any priority in the result listing, but the NavBar on top of all Blogger.com sites are supposed to give you the same result as the Google Blog Search does. We will see how this new search ties with Google’s own blog-hosting service.