• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, November 9, 2006

Dow Jones Co.'s MarketWatch.com has installed a blog search engine made by Sphere across its article and blog pages. Sphere's search engine returns results from related news and information sites and online books, photos and podcasts.

The company recently made its technology available as a widget that allows publishers to showcase site content in addition to relevant posts from external blogs. Other sites using the Sphere search widget include TechCrunch.com, Time.com, The New York Times Co.'s About.com, TechDirt and GigaOm.

On MarketWatch, visitors will find a "Related Blogs and Articles" link at the bottom of each article page and blog post that launches the Sphere search tool. Readers are then directed to three areas of relevant information: Bloggers Talking About This Topic: Related Articles from MarketWatch; and MarketWatch Blogs, which includes blogs by columnists Bambi Francisco, Frank Barnako and Herb Greenberg.

Obviously, MarketWatch doesn't want to lose too much traffic to other sites through the Sphere feature, since two of the three search areas offered are within its own site.

MarketWatch already offers social networking widgets on its pages including those from Web 2.0 companies such as Del.icio.us, Digg, and Facebook. MarketWatch has also recently added related podcasts and video results to its search pages, along with results from news and information sites outside the Dow Jones Online network.