Why Women Blog – Need Exact Search in Google

Students and I were trying, somehow, to find articles on why women blog. I know I had read some in the past, so why can't we find them in the search engines? I went to Google and tried a whole bunch of different terms - women blogging benefits - women blogging problems - women bloggers problems. And I had very little success.

Finally the light bulb went off and I remembered you could do a search at Google putting an exact phrase in quotes. When I entered "why women blog" (including quotation marks) in the Google search box, I got lots of hits right on target (7 on first page of hits plus a good video on second page). I'm listing them below for anyone who wants to follow up on this topic.

• Video: “Why Women Blog” uploaded by author to MomTV.com on Feb. 10, 2010. Based on a one year study where she asked women all over the country “Why do you blog? The main message I got from the video is the community building around bloggers & their readers. Also this video seemed like a lot better way to present one’s report than the traditional all text methods. Video also available at author’s own blog site Marketing to Women Online where more comments are posted.
• “Blissdom '10 - What I Learned About Women” what blogger Holly Buchanon learned about women bloggers at the Blissdom ’10 conference. Entry dated 2/7/10 on Holly’s Marketing to Women Online blog.
• “Why Women Blog” from the Crossroads Dispatches blog, dated 5/20/05
• “Why Women Blog Less than Men” from Newser.com, dated 10/27/09 – very short, not sure I agree.
• “Why Women Blog More than Men” from Jerminix” blog, dated 8/30/08
• “Why Women Blog” from the Feminist Majority’s Choices Campus Blog. Dated 6/19/09
• Wonderful link provided by commenter in above blog post to Bella DePaulo’s “For the Love of Blogging” at Huffington Post. Dated 6/19/09
• Great list of relevant articles at Highbeam.com where they want you to pay to read, but they give the source of each of the articles – many of which are also available on the free web; others available to SCSU people for free via EBSCO host at Miller Library web pages.