Honest Ranking in the TTLB EcoSystem

NZ Bear Killing the Trackback Parties, this according to Jay at Stop the ACLU. Don Surber has the details.

I never understood how blogs with much less traffic than mine could be so much higher than me in the rankings until I understood the manipulation of trackbacks.

So finally I gave in and just this week I started pinging. I am up 50 notches in 2 days. Huh!

Isn’t that special?

I bet by next week I’ll be higher than Jay.

It’s a bullshit way to manipulate the system. The little guys? The little guys have to earn it.

Sorry but that’s the way it should be - a meritocracy.

This is the first I am hearing of NZ’s plan to clean up the a juiced system and I feel better that ranking will be on merit. Don’t you?

UPDATE November 23rd: Wasn't expecting much action on this thread.
[hits forehead]

Look, I have been blogging since February '05 and I have worked damn hard for my numbers. No trackbacks. PURE WILL.
No free pass.

How can emailing the big boys be cheating? If your post adds to their posts that day, they link. Bah dah bing.That is how you get your word out there and it is incumbant upon larger blogs to pay attention to smaller blogs. We have all been there.

If KOS and Drudge are number one, so be it.

A popularity contest? Based on what?

Looks?  This is not a beauty contest, these are political, epistemological, idea, thought provoking blogs.

I never understood the trackback thing. Never figured it out either until I was made to understand that you could play with the numbers/ranking.

When I started blogging I had 2 visitors a day. That is how it is. It is still a brave new world, constantly changing everyday.
Traffic and ranking is fluid.

I am not discouraging anyone to trackback to me nor do the have to justify themselves. I was merely weighing in on something I found inherently unfair (I don't even know what a "linkfest" is).

And NO I don't blog for rank (I mean really). Me, I honestly want to save the free world but at the end of the day if  I want to sell advertising, rank means something.

And as a personal value......it means something.

UPDATE: From the Iconic La Shawn

Pamela is half right. I’m a blogger with less traffic than many lower-ranked bloggers, but trackbacking to posts is not manipulation; it’s blogging. The manipulation is when people create Open Trackback posts for the sole purpose of generating incoming links to raise their TTLB rankings. I am by no means Blogger Queen, but here is my assessment, and take it for what it’s worth:

You bloggers may not believe in the “build it, and they will come” idea, but it is true. The best kind of bloggers are the “pure bloggers,” those who blog for the joy of it. I am such a blogger. I appreciate my readers and most commenters, but if my traffic slacks off or readers begin to comment less, I’d still be here almost every day self-publishing my opinions and loving it. I love the mere act of blogging, and if people surf here to read my thoughts, it’s like lemon icing on my chocolate cake.

I put in the effort to come up with interesting ideas, do some research, write (which is sometimes hard to do), edit, proofread, and publish — day after day after day. I e-mail bigger bloggers to request links, and I’ve attracted enough readers in two years to be a widely-linked blogger. It’s been hard yet rewarding work. People link and trackback to my posts, and over the years I’ve risen through the TTLB Ecosystem.

Occasionally I do round-up posts to showcase new or smaller bloggers and ask them to trackback if they want to be included in the post (another example). This is not open trackbacking. Round-up posts require a lot of linking (and work) and information sharing, and in order to prevent an overloaded inbox, I ask readers to alert me to their posts by trackbacking to mine. Trackbacks and links via substantive round-up posts are different than Open Trackback posts.

UPDATE: November 25th; La Shawn weighs in - HOOHA!

Comments

[SondraK]

Thanks Pamela, nice job.

[David Gerstman]

I don't participate much in linkfests but I don't see it as cheating. It is the system. Different people have ways of getting recognized. The bottom line is that if the links are no good people won't come back to them.
Look when I write something that might appeal to a bigger blogger, I'll e-mail it to him/her in hope that he'll/she'll pick it up. Isn't that gaming the system too?

[J. Francis Lehman]

I've linked to you a few times, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how the damn trackback things work, so I gave up on that a long time ago. *shrug* Coding is not my thing; I know enough to get by. Barely.

No, you probably won't like my blog, but that's okay. I like yours; you have lots of good info on the terrorist scumbags and their snivelling leftist apologists and appeasers. I think you give the Falwell/Santorum types too much of a free pass, but that's your prerogative, just as it's mine to berate them for being a load of intolerant assclowns.

[don surber]

With all due respect, it is how we build traffic.
I never understood the Ecosystem. The names were an insult. And it exists only to salve conservative egos. They are being murderlized by Daily Kos when it comes to hits.
All blogs get killed by the 10 million a day from Drudge
And the trackback parties/linkfests/open posts continue.

[Jay]

Atlass, I hope you do outrank me soon because you definitely deserve it more than I do right? As I said in my post, I could really care less about rank. People who obsess about a rank in TTLB are not blogging for the right reason in my opinion. So anyway! Best of luck, and next time you are having drinks with the big boys tell them I said hi!

[rightwingprof]

This is the first I am hearing of NZ’s plan to clean up the a juiced system and I feel better that ranking will be on merit. Don’t you?

No, because it isn't merit -- unless you count popularity contests as merit.

[Jay]

You know, besides, I've never understood how one could accurately be measured for rank by the amount of links to your blog. Wouldn't it just be more honest to measure by traffic alone? That would put KOS up top, but it would be more honest. Don't you think?

[moonbat monitor]

not that I get millions of hits or anything, but yes, I think it would be better. I found it strange that my traffic rating somewhere around 2,000, but my rating that I displayed was around 5,000. It's more fair that way. But it's not really a big deal I guess. Who really blogs for ranking anyway.

[Randy]

I agree. There are some who are mooches and some who just genuinely want to trackback to their favorite blogs who have good posts. I trackback to a couple of blogs a lot (maybe once every other day at most) because I like them a lot.

This blog is new to me so you might see a couple from me every once in a while.

Trackbacking in general...
IF a person is doing it for the numbers...no
IF they are doing it for exposure only...no
IF they are doing it for building an informative or fun blogpost...yes.

I see the trackback fest as a marketing strategy that is kind of counter-productive to the spirit of the blogosphere. For me blogging is a hobby and I develop my posts out of a purely creative drive. Whatever happens happens. I don't personally need to be a "top dog" blog.

Trackbacks are a tool to use for the enhancement of community and the information flow through the blogosphere. If they are used for a numbers game...no thanks.

Oh and to make this post even longer...I am in the Ecosystem and have often wondered why? That question may turn into my own post :).

Thanks for having a fun blog to read.

[Randy]

I agree. There are some who are mooches and some who just genuinely want to trackback to their favorite blogs who have good posts. I trackback to a couple of blogs a lot (maybe once every other day at most) because I like them a lot.

This blog is new to me so you might see a couple from me every once in a while.

Trackbacking in general...
IF a person is doing it for the numbers...no
IF they are doing it for exposure only...no
IF they are doing it for building an informative or fun blogpost...yes.

I see the trackback fest as a marketing strategy that is kind of counter-productive to the spirit of the blogosphere. For me blogging is a hobby and I develop my posts out of a purely creative drive. Whatever happens happens. I don't personally need to be a "top dog" blog.

Trackbacks are a tool to use for the enhancement of community and the information flow through the blogosphere. If they are used for a numbers game...no thanks.

Oh and to make this post even longer...I am in the Ecosystem and have often wondered why? That question may turn into my own post :).

Thanks for having a fun blog to read.

[Randy]

and then I do something stupid and hit the post button one to many times. Sorry :/

[Pamela aka"Atlas"]

Look, I have been blogging since February '05 and I have worked damn hard for my numbers. No trackbacks. PURE WILL.
No free pass.

How can emailing the big boys be cheating? If your post adds to their posts that day, they link. Bah dah bing.That is how you get your word out there and it is incumbant upon larger blogs to pay attention to smaller blogs. We have all been there.

If KOS and Drudge are number one, so be it.

A popularity contest? Based on what?

Looks?

This is not a beauty contest, these are political, epistemological, idea, thought provoking blogs.

I never understood the trackback thing. Never figured it out either until I was made to understand that you could play with the numbers/ranking.

When I started blogging I had 2 visitors a day. That is how it is. It is still a brave new world, constantly changing everyday.
Traffic and ranking is fluid

I am not discouraging anyone to trackback to me nor do the have to justify themselves. I was merely weighing in on something I found inherently unfair (I don't even know what a "linkfest" is).

And NO I don't blog for rank (I mean really). Me, I honestly want to save the free world but at the end of the day if I want to sell advertising, rank means something.

And as a personal value......it means something.

Pamela

[Pamela aka"Atlas"]

running the above as an entry update.

Didn't realize how vested people were in this, on both sides.

Pamela

[Jay]

I want to save the free world too! Trackback parties on my part were never meant to game any kind of system, but to give voice to blogs that might otherwise be passed by.

[David]

May I respectfully (because I do very much respect your views and your blog content) point out the central flaw in your post?

Daily Kos: 741,962 average daily visitors
Instapundit: 152,742 average daily visitors

By N.Z. Bear's own stats, that means that DailyKos has nearly FIVE TIMES (~4.85X) the traffic Glenn does, but although Glenn only has about 1/3 more links, Instapundit beats the socks off DailyKos in ranking.

So, if Blog X has 1/3 or 1/5 the traffic Blog Y does but has 1/3 more links, naturally Blog X would rank higher in the TTLB ecosystem.

But as Don Surber notes clearly, some animals are more equal than others. Some folks doing just what Instapundit is doing—but offering more actual _content_ than Glenn does—are having their linkage excluded.

Is that fair? Sure it is! It's N.Z. Bear's toy and he can do any darned thing he wants to with it! Is it honest? Heck no! Not in the tiniest bit! It's the "hockey stick equation" of the blogosphere. N.Z. Bear can tinker with it to get whatever results he wants, whenever he wants.

And while, as I've said, that's fair, cos it's his toy, it's certainly not honest.

Check Jo's cafe out for the REAL take on trackback linkfests. Just cos you don't want to play, don't wave the "dishonest ranking" flag, because it may just not be true, and it's simply not worthy of your otherwise high standards that you would accuse me and others of being dishonest and attempting to manipulate the system or whatever simply because you don't want to play trackback linkfest games.

I'm with Jo, all the way on this:

"What is most important is who you are and does your blog reflect you and are YOU comfortable with who comes and reads. I spent all this month dealing with diabetes as much as I could. Did everyone read the posts? Probably not, but then again, I have received some wonderful e-mails from folks thanking me for a particular post. When I get those, I don’t care if the ecosystem even is out there."

I don't care about N.Z. Bear, but I do care about his _apparent_ dishonesty in ranking. If it's not dishonesty, he ought to fully reveal his criteria and let folks decide if they wanna play with him. Sure, some highly-competitive, ethically challenged bloggers would try to game him (and probably do already), but as it stands, changing his criteria on a whim—while completely fair, cos, as I have repeatedly said, it's his toy—is certainly not honest.

Or would you consider a referee at a football game who made up the rules as he went along an honest referee? Whatever, it wouldn't be football the players were playing.

[lawhawk]

I'm agnostic over this whole linking thing. I have done a bit of trackbacking lately, and that's pushed me up in the ecosystem, and it's generated additional traffic, not to mention wider recognition.

But that's also had the benefit of having my bloggings picked up by a wider array of sources, who now cite and link back. And that's a good thing.

I still do things the old fashioned way. I leave my comments (often on LGF), and if I've blogged the subject, I link back. And whenever I come across blogs that have addressed the subjects, I link/trackback to them - since rising waters lift all boats.

So everyone should do what's best for them. Come visit my site. Or not. That clickthrough is still your choice.

[Don Surber]

I did not make myself clear.
IDGAF about where I rank in the Echosystem. That was not the point.
I wanted to attract enough links to actual posts to make top post or whatever. That way people would see and visit. Established Blogs often pick up on some of the subjects I uncover, so it does work.
OK, NZ's site, NZ's rules.
I prefer Technorati's ranks. Unique links -- I'm 813rd there.
Thanks. Sorry for making trouble
(No I'm not. I'm a trouble maker)