One nice feature of online shopping is that many Web sites can show you items similar to the one you are looking at. You might ask an online bookstore to show you books similar to a certain book. Or you can ask an online music store to display CDs in the same genre as the CD you're viewing.

Little did I know that Google offers much the same service. You can enter a site or page, and it will show you other sites or pages that its sophisticated search algorithms think are similar. You do this simply by going to www.google.com and entering related: followed by the URL of the site or page of interest.

For example, if you want to find sites similar to that of British journalist and altermondialist George Monbiot, just enter related:www.monbiot.com. If you're interested in Peak Oil you can search for sites similar to the Post Carbon Institute. Or you can look for sites dealing with sustainability similar to the Irish FEASTA Web site.

Then I happened to notice that Google does not find any sites similar to www.jimrudolf.com. Is that because this site is in a class by itself?