We’re Number 1 – at least that’s what Technorati says
Just did a quick cursory check of Technorati to see where Bearing Drift ranked among some of my friends in the Virginia blogging community…
- Bearing Drift…1313
- SWAC Girl…1847
- Virginia Virtucon…1985
- Not Larry Sabato…2604
- BVBL…3978
- Vivian Paige…4024
- Blue Virginia (bluevablog.blogspot.com)…17033
- Too Conservative…21301
Interesting. The top three blogs in Virginia are all conservative (and Jeffersoniad Blogs); four of the top five are conservative.
Category: Catch-All
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Congrats, JR and Bearing Drift! Keep up the good work.
Congratulations to… well, everyone!
Just for some other frames of reference from the Bearing Drift bunker:
SK.com ranks at 11276,
RWL comes in at 6111,
Fisherville Mike comes in at 1455 (!)
UCV comes in at 4945,
Bacon’s Rebellion is at 6542,
TQ is at 6341,
Augusta Free Press is at 1568,
From On High comes in at 2103,
CCC is at 4519,
Delmarva Dealings is at 10971,
Waldo Jaquith is at 10645,
The WaPo’s Virginia Politics… is at 17881 (HA!)
The Write Side of My Brain is at 23001,
Scott’s Morning Brew is at 42649,
Too Progressive is at 88313,
I’m Surrounded By Idiots… 88313 (I think this is where Technorati taps out)
Cathouse Chat is at 29551,
Deo Vindice is at 65608,
GeorgeAllen.com is at 10340
QandO.net comes in at 18243 (which genuinely surprises me)
Mason Conservative is at 5942
Rule.303 is at 14048
The Virginia Conservative is at 12084
RightsideVA is at 36188
The Green Miles is at 6606
Any others?
Technorati’s number still don’t make total sense. Yankeephil has an authority of 1, and I have 580 authority. My rank today is 1455. (Getting a link from Instapundit on Dec. 31 pushed me into the top 1000 for a few days. Thanks, Boob Czar).
FWIW, I’ve never put a whole lot of stock in these numbers. However, it does make for interesting discussion. I think it clearly shows that the conservative blogs in Virginia are competing.
@Mike — So you got an Instalanche? It’s amazing that Instapundit has that much sway over the blogosphere writ large. Maybe the Instapundit-style blogs haven’t breathed their last?
Couldn’t find YankeePhil on Technorati… though I imagine he ranks with most of the SWAC bloggers in terms of influence. Couldn’t find STD either…
Technorati doesn’t measure hits or visits, it measures links.
Lowell and I have public sitemeter links on our blogs where everyone can see how much traffic we get day to day, month to month, etc. If you guys think you are competing, you should do the same and match apples to apples.
Oh wait- you do- and it’s 1/3 of NLS and 1/2 of Blue Virginia in traffic everyday. And that’s the best among the conservative blogs in VA.
Sure Ben, everybody loves a circus.
Your comparison is kinda like “American Idol” vs. “Meet the Press.”
American Idol? You can be more insulting than that, c’mon.
Ward: That analogy is too kind on both ends.
More like “Biggest Loser” v. “Hannity & Colmes”
Ha, any ranking that has The Green Miles three times higher than Blue Virginia is seriously flawed! Maybe I should have Lowell guest post at TGM instead of the other way around?
All this depends on by which standard you judge being “influential”:
Technorati: Who links to you? Who talks about your information?
Sitemeter: Pure traffic — visits, hits, unique visitors.
Google Analytics: Attempts to bridge the two by providing better data.
Of course, arguments abound as to which is better. For instance, if you are CNN and everyone is linking to your article, that’s great… if you are looking for that sort of thing. Technorati in this instance is for you.
If you are Instapundit or DrudgeReport, then who cares who links to you — you’re a web portal. Or if you’re Perez Hilton, then traffic (you want to see whether a tabloid is talking about you, etc). In this instance, Sitemeter does what you need it to do.
Google Analytics is the best resource, and of course they don’t rank. They provide 80 proof straight-up-the-gut information. If you’re looking for conversion rates, how long people read an article, unique IPs, returning visitors, and what drives what. If you’re looking for a weapon of choice, this is mine.
Then there’s Alexa:
Bearing Drift (ranked 241,579, 53,965 in US, 189 sites linking in)
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bearingdrift.com
Not Larry Sabato (ranked 609,471, 240,699 in US, 252 sites linking in)
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/notlarrysabato.typepad.com
Blue Virginia (ranked 730,095, 255,425 in US, 129 sites linking in)
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bluevirginia.us
Virginia Virtucon (ranked 1,673,327, 377,616 in US, 154 sites linking in)
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com
Moral of the story: Depending on what you’re looking for, you’ll find a statistic to back up your claims.
Moral of the story – I was curious if I could get Ben to comment.
Too easy.
Unfortunately Lowell and Vivian didn’t take the bait. (But I’ll take Miles as a surrogate as a moral victory)
I’ll do better next time.
Shaun, you and I have agreed on this for years: The influence of a blog depends on what your goal is. A blog dedicated to conservative Fifth District politics will inherently have a tiny readership, but if the goal is to influence the outcome of the upcoming primary, such a site could be enormously influential. Having moved much of my time to Richmond Sunlight (especially now, during session) and cvillenews.com, my “influence” (such as it is) is spread out among multiple sources that can’t really be tallied, nor—I think—is there any real value to attempting to do so. Jim, you’re on WVTF every week, listened to by many tens of thousands of people—how do you measure the impact of that? Isn’t that really an extension of your blog, after all?
Influence measured on any simple website traffic scale isn’t meaningful or useful. While amusing, I think it’s ultimately not helpful, and potentially harmful, insofar as it causes people to focus on things like getting the most hits or getting the most links, rather than actually researching, thinking, and communicating information that’s of value to their readers.
Lowell took the bait- he just did it on his own blog.
Waldo –
I’d entirely agree, and I think it falls into two very neat categories: (1) you care about the stats, or (2) you just don’t give a damn, because that’s not why you participate.
Today folks have jumped into the era of metrics, demographics, average time on site, etc. to get into some statistics that no MSM newspaper would ever dream of having. “Influence” is a very loose term… I doubt there’s a firm metrics-based way of determining how person X is seriously influential based on web traffic.
After all, this is a fishbowl. Easy to forget, but 75% of Virginia doesn’t know our little microclimate of Virginia politics exists — much less cares.
Waldo – I completely agree with you and I think you captured my thoughts very well. You too Shaun.
As I stated in a previous comment, I never have put a lot of stock in these numbers, but as you can see by the way some have immediately begun to jump up and down, some have.
I really was just posting this for a reaction…and I was not disappointed.
Frankly, and I’ve said this all along, I could have an audience of five and I’d be happy…but it sure doesn’t hurt to be a contributor to National Journal’s bloggers poll, with you on WVTF, regularly clipped for the Virginian-Pilot’s editorial page, and have Brian Kirwin representing BD on WHRO’s “What Matters”.
The blog is a conduit for political information…and it’s fun.
Take the bait? Are you kidding? I’m changing the banner on TGM as we speak to “THE GREEN MILES: THREE TIMES MORE IMPORTANT THAN BLUE VIRGINIA.” Lowell will never hear the end of this.
Looks like Virtucon just overtook you for Numero Uno. We’re up to 1515 and you’re at 1531 today…
[...] New Numero Uno… Posted on February 18, 2010 by Riley As Bearing Drift pointed out the other day, conservative blogs are ranked by Technorati as the dominant influential blogs in the [...]
That’s only because DJ cross-posts!
Go team!
[...] after the Bearing Drift presented some Technorati numbers, followed by the leftosphere’s howls and Virginia Virtucon’s touche on the matter, I [...]