Regular readers of this blog on Typepad (versus in a feed reader) will notice something different this morning. I deleted the badges for the AdAge Power 150 and Mack Collier’s Top Marketing Blogs.
I’ve never cared too much for blog ranking systems. Ranking systems are popularity contests, of one form or another, and just not my thing. I enjoy writing Marketing Roadmaps, am thrilled and honored that so many people get something out of it, and love reading your comments. This blog has never been and never will be about having a top ranking.
But I do follow the different systems so I understand what’s going on, and in all honesty, did get a kick out of being on the AdAge 150, albeit toward the back. I also think Mack Collier’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs was a good effort.
The problem is that the source data these, and other, ranking systems use is, well, rank. As in "strong or offensive in odor or taste." And it just doesn’t seem to get any better.
Consider the following:
Bloglines has no idea of the total number of readers who’ve subscribed to my feeds. Or at least it can’t count them, and delivers a different set of choices each time you subscribe. Yup, I tried it this morning, and first time I was offered my old atom and rdf feeds, which are still active with subscribers, and the second time I was offered my feedburner feed and the rdf feed. Feedburner on the other hand has no problem counting them up and getting to a total number. But the AdAge ranking just uses one of the numbers. Does that mean it under-reports my Bloglines subscribers? Or is Feedburner double counting somehow? Who knows, and really who cares? Bloglines is so cluttered with inactive or duplicate accounts, it doesn’t matter which of these numbers is the right one. There are just so many opportunities for error, Bloglines subscribers is totally suspect as a measure of readership.
Alexa. Man, I just don’t get Alexa. Or rather, I just don’t get how it has managed to become an important measure. It counts page views by people who’ve installed the Alexa toolbar. Hmm. It seems that if you use the Alexa toolbar yourself, your ranking goes up. Mine went up 29% since I installed it last week. Hmm.
Google Page Rank. What Google bestoweth, Google taketh away. Just ask all the Posties who had their page rank reset to zero. I’m not fond of Pay Per Post (or whatever it is called now), but something that can be artificially reset to penalize is not a terribly good basis for a ranking system. Too bad Google already apparently owns the world.
And Technorati. Ah Technorati. You have had your problems over the years, but until last weekend, you were fairly consistent. Marketing Roadmaps had been hovering somewhere between 450-550 in authority, and in the top 10,000 blogs, for quite some time, even before the W list pulled some women, including me, up a bit. Because it represented people linking into a blog, it was more dynamic than counting feed subscribers. And you could *see* what the ranking was based on. That’s why I thought Mack Collier’s list was more representative of influence than measures that use subscribers or hits. But this weekend, Technorati imploded. God only knows what they did to the algorithm, but suddenly Marketing Roadmaps’ authority is in the 200s and we are nowhere near the top 10,000. Why? The same blogs are still linking in. I can’t imagine that EVERYONE who had the blog in their blogroll suddenly decided to drop me. We don’t know why things changed. And that’s the problem with using Technorati as a ranking measure. Not a big deal if it is just your ego taking the hit. But what if you are using a ranking system to set ad rates for your blog? Yeah, not so good.
Don’t even get me started on subjective ratings. Certainly, they are important for understanding the influence of a blog or a blogger, but they are also situational and inherently biased. They do not belong in ranking systems.
I’ll continue to measure the health of this blog by your comments, visits and the general trending I see in Google Analytics and Feedburner. I applaud the folks who are trying to come up with systems to measure the influence of a blog or a blogger, but am not sure it is possible given the highly suspect data sources available to us.
So I’ve taken down the badges. Not sure I’ll ever put them back up.
Tags: Technorati, Alexa, Bloglines, Google Page Rank, Feedburner, ranking, measurement, Ad Age Power150
Brad Levinson says
“Ah Technorati” indeed. There was a time when Technorati was my “be-all” for blogs — and it worked amazingly (just ask David). I don’t know what gives — ever since they changed authority system in the second-to-last relaunch, things have been more than unreliable.
At the same time, as you’ve suggested, it’s made me look more creatively at blogs — “old school-style.” Numbers of comments, links in blog rolls from other members of the community, the actual content itself. I then use the Technorati Rank, the PageRank, and some tidbits from Quantcast as loose “suggestions” on how I might proceed.
The best metrics system that I’ve found so far is the Colbert metrics system. That is to say, what rank does your gut give the blog? ๐
– Brad
Mack Collier says
Technorati has been screwy for me as well in the past few days. I suddenly gained about 70 links, then lost 30 later in the day.
I still think there is a big hole here for a service that gives bloggers accurate information about how other bloggers are using the blogosphere. For example, I’d love to see how many of my links are from blogrolls, and how many are from links in posts. Are these numbers increasing or decreasing? How are subscribers according to Feedburner comparing to others (I too think Bloglines is totally inaccurate. I have no idea how they get their figures)
IMO Technorati was on their way until they tried to be ‘all things to all media’ last year, and they stretched themselves too thin. They should have continued to concentrate on bloggers, and adding more functionality and services to its core ‘customers’.
Phil Barrett says
This discussion reminds me a lot of what we used to do in the mid-nineties when everybody was rushing to get their “cool site of the day” badge. At one point people had more badges than content. ๐
I agree with much of what has been said – the rankings are as much a popularity contest as they are link bait.
As long as we focus on content & adding to the conversation, the number of badges should be irrelevant.
The only stat is look at is my unique user count on my web log. It seems to be more consistent / accurate than anything else.
Mary Schmidt says
I stopped caring about Techorati weeks ago. And, not because they show me having about 1/2 of the links that I once had (surely, as with you – that many people didn’t delete me?) – but I get better notifcation re new links via Google Alerts!
As long as the people who want to find me can do so — and I get quality new people, I’m happy.