Poliblog Perspective

Unity at Ministry of Truth has been comparing Technorati Rankings and Authority levels with Iain Dale’s tables.

Comments on Unity’s Comments

He has some interesting thoughts and comments, and has prompted some reflections from me. This was going to be a comment, but it has turned into an article. Later in the article, I’ll explain why I think that now is not a good time to draw conclusions from Technorati rankings.

I note that despite his floccipaucinihilipilification of the Technorati system, Unity still manages (under the cunning cover of a stray “nevertheless” and an “if”) to spend five paragraphs using Technorati rankings to tell the right-wing blogosphere that it is not as influential as everyone seems to think it is !

As a balance to Unity’s assessment, I’d paraphrase a comment on 18 Doughty Street when a “balanced-ish” panel discussed the current state of political blogging on Blogger TV (Anthony Barnett - Our Kingdom, Lee Rowley - Maida Vale Conservatives, Duncan Borrowman - Lib Dem, Phil Hendren of Dizzy Thinks):

If Recess Monkey is at the top of the left-wing blogosphere, then boy do they have a problem.

His piece is well worth a read. As usual for Ministry of Truth, you need to gird your loins before diving in - but the article is only 2000 words, rather than the usual 3000-4000.

You can find the 18 Doughty Street “Blogger TV” Conversation here. It will go via a redirection in a new window, so will take a second or two to arrive.

Technorati Rankings and other Measurement Systems

On Technorati, I’d say “it’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got”, and I’d apply a pinch of salt. Technorati Authority is the number of different blogs linking to you in the last 6 months - so “Diversity” is perhaps a better name than “Authority”.

Other system - such as The Truth Laid Bear (http://truthlaidbear.com/) deliberately focus on links in articles, and so report on recent coverage only. The Bear - which is a much smaller scale and rather more “intermittent” system - has an “ecosystem” based on evolution, which currently categorises the Wardman Wire as a “slimy mollusc”.

Still other systems, such as “Blog Top Sites” (I have their badge in my sidebar at the bottom) count page impressions and generate rankings among blogs known to them in a particular niche.

All measure different things, and you need to understand how they work. It is “horses for courses”.

Comments on Measuring Political Blogs with Technorati

Technorati matters if you are planning to make money

One group of people who do set store by Technorati figures are some advertising networks.

As a “shoot from the hip” estimate, if you get into the Technorati top 1000, you should be able to make a good chunk of your income from your blog. It is possible lower down (Tim Worstall is one person doing this - to an extent - in the UK Political niche), but you have to know your stuff. Further down, it is straightforward to make some pocket money.

One example: currently the Wardman Wire is making perhaps £20-30 a month on traffic of around 500-1000 unique users a day. I should be able to do better than that over time - but each blog requires a very careful mix and that takes some time to build.

The Usmanov and Schillings Affair means that we live in interesting times

Now is a fascinating time to look at the numbers, as a whole group of UK Political Blogs have been intensely linking to each other via the “Usmanov List” and through linking to related articles. Many blogs (especially those who covered the story early on) have received significant boosts in Technorati authority. I was looking at the rankings of some blogs several weeks ago for different reasons, so I can supply some data for a few blogs I was monitoring.

Chicken Yoghurt - who hosted the list at the start - is up by about 125 Authority points in the last fortnight.

Others are up by around 75-100 points - such as Ellee Seymour, Norfolk Blogger, Devils Kitchen , Ordovicius, Ministry of Truth and the Wardman Wire.

Authority Growing like Topsy

Three weeks ago Chicken Yoghurt was at 297 (428 now), Devils Kitchen was at 308 (374 now) and The Wardman Wire was the same at 308 (397 now). Ordovicius was at around 110 (now 193). Ellee Seymour was somewhere in the range 200 to 250 (285 now), and Norfolk Blogger was at 183 (253 now).

We all got an extra Technorati Authority point when blogs that linked to us that had not done so before. The Wardman Wire, for example, gained a lot more links from the Left Wing Blogosphere of the UK Political niche than had been the case previously. I also have very little blogroll, and have exchanged links with very few blogs deliberately so far - which meant there were more opportunities for completely new links.

Iain Dale’s boost from the current list copying frenzy has been about 30-35. Iain benefited less than Ministry of Truth and The Wardman Wire, as he’s already ubiquitous throughout the niche, and so received a lot fewer extra links.

One further effect worthy of comment is that when a blog is more than six months old, links lost from the start of the period reduce the Authority score - working against the effect of new links received. Of those listed above, the Wardman Wire is the only one that has been less than 6 months old during this period.

Ironically, since Unity wrote his article, the Wardman Wire has gone into its 7th month and the score has gone down slightly as early links are no longer counted.

Limitations of the UK Political Blogging “niche”

The Technorati Authority of UK Political blogs has a natural “cap” if we are not linked from outside the UK Political Blogging niche. Iain suggests that there are perhaps 1200-1500 UK Political Blogs. Even if a blog is linked from all of those, it will not make the Technorati Top 1000.

Consider - for example - the gadget blog ShinyShiny, which is almost in the Top 1000 in Technorati. It has an Authority of 1,487, and a Ranking of 1,113).

For a Political Blog to become a Top 1000 Technorati Blog, it is necessary to obtain links from outside the Political Blogging Niche. Relatively few political blogs actually do that. Five that do are Pickled Politics, Samizdata, Rachel North, Tim Worstall and the Wardman Wire.

In the case of the Wardman Wire, seeking non-political links has been an explicit policy from day one for some of the reasons explained above, and this partly explains the blog’s relatively rapid rise up the rankings.

You can see that this may have quite serious implications for Independent UK Political Bloggers wanting to make an income from their blog.

Should the Rankings matter, and should we worry about them?

In my opinion yes they do matter - but it all turns on our aims for our political blogging activity.

If we have political campaigning in mind, then it seems to me that of course mapping our progress matters. Technorati may be one suitable measure. Another may be something as mundane as how many constituents mention the blog in conversation. The main thing is to think about the numbers and what they actually mean.

If we are going to argue that mapping the progress and influence of our blogs does not matter - then I’d ask a question back:

Why do we bother about canvas returns and careful targeting of our leaflet drops?

On the other hand, it is an equally valid viewpoint that a political blog is simply a platform for political reflection. In analogy, I note that there are plenty of political parties out there that don’t worry about canvas returns - because they have made their point by simply standing in an election.

Problems with Measuring Blogs

There are some interesting comments from a different view from Chris Dillow.

Chris identifies three problems, all highly pertinent:

Those who know little about blogs - some dead tree writers, for example - might think the higher-ranked blogs are good representatives of blogging. And they’ll be disappointed; most of them are empty-headed, dull and trivial wannabe dead-tree writers.

Secondly, there’s something nasty about the very notion that blogs can be ranked on a simple single ordering. The overwhelming virtue of the blogosphere is its diversity. And the many things that make a good blog are to some extent incompatible; originality versus consistency; passion versus intellectual rigour; number of posts versus quality of individual posts; brevity versus weight of evidence; wit versus gravitas, and so on.

Thirdly, even if others’ preferences can be ranked, so what? Why should I give a damn what others think? I don’t blog so I can be judged by any middle-class moron who thinks his opinion matters - that’s what I go to work for.

Responding from my angle:

Measurements may have their different uses, but only if you think about their limitations and treat them as one piece of the jigsaw.

Wrapping Up

This type of reflection - looking at the “nuts and bolts of blogging” in an accessible way - is a large part of the reason for creating “Poliblog Perspective”.

Comments as to whether it is any use would be most welcome.

Tags: Devils Kitchen, Ministry of truth, technorati rankings, advertising, political blogging, Pickled Politics, Samizdata, Rachel North, Tim Worstall, Wardman Wire, Matt Wardman, Ellee Seymour, Norfolk Blogger, Devils Kitchen, Ordovicius, Ministry of Truth, Chicken Yoghurt, Recess Monkey, Maida Vale Conservatives, Duncan Borrowman, Dizzy Thinks, Our Kingdom[tags]Devils Kitchen, Ministry of truth, technorati rankings, advertising, political blogging, Pickled Politics, Samizdata, Rachel North, Tim Worstall, Wardman Wire, Matt Wardman, Ellee Seymour, Norfolk Blogger, Devils Kitchen, Ordovicius, Ministry of Truth, Chicken Yoghurt, Recess Monkey, Maida Vale Conservatives, Duncan Borrowman, Dizzy Thinks, Our Kingdom[/tags]

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