I really enjoy that this feature got released. Adding more visibility to the indie/small web is a great thing. I've complained in the past on HN that any useful personal blog is buried under spammy content in search engines.

It would be nice to also be able to just search within the small web, maybe using a lens in the future?

Regarding the topic of self promotion, I would disagree with the current rules and I would ask you to allow people to self promote. As long they have an old enough blog, maybe even cut that down to a year, would be helpful. Most users on the small/indie web lack visibility and this would do them service. My blog is already within the index because I think it might have been picked up during the "HN share your blog" post that happened a while ago, but others might not have been that lucky.