Google has for some time been my favorite search engine, as it has been for a lot of people. It also helps this blog out quite a bit, being the chief referrer among all the search engines; last month, for example, Google sent 1214 people to my site, as opposed to 589 from Yahoo, 375 from MSN, and 48 from AOL.

In addition, Google seems to have a much more human face. Just a few days ago, they started a Google Blog, which discusses Google and other search engine issues in a straightforward, personal style (even comical sometimes–their advice for young people who want to clean up their blogs for Mom-viewing sagely suggests using “more Mom-friendly vocabulary,” e.g. “I got really drunk last night” to “I got really marshmallow last night.”) Another example is that, as an expected artifact of linking to all content–even offensive content–searches for the word “Jew” resulted in links to a great many anti-Semitic and supremacist web sites; Google has made very public an explanation and apology that tells why this happens and how to avoid such results.

Google also has some good secondary services, including Blogger, which allows anyone to make their own blog for free. It is actually very, very good. It only takes a minute or two to set up, and there you go. It allows access with the excellent Mac blogging app “Ecto” (wBloggar on Windows also will work). Photos cannot be uploaded, but can be added to the blog if they exist elsewhere on the web. You are given the choice of 25 design templates (with a link to more), and are given access to the HTML template so you can make custom changes. It also allows for comments, RSS feed, and a fair amount of customization through the site settings. The downsides are no categories, a banner ad at the top (“Ads by Google,” so not too obnoxious), and no direct stats (although they do point you to sitemeter.com). Blogger’s BlogSpot Plus service allows for photo uploads, statistics and more, but they are presently not accepting new accounts for that service.

Google also is starting a new service–not yet widely available–called “G-Mail,” a free web-based email service like Hotmail or Yahoo, but with a full gigabyte of mailbox space. Google gets its money back by adding their less-than-intrusive text ads.