Blog Rankings: Is Wikio More Accurate than Technorati?

Technorati is the world's most popular blog aggregation and ranking system. Selected as one of Time Magazines 25 sites we can't live without, it is probably the first site which comes to mind when referencing how well our blogs compare with others.

Wikio on the other hand is a relatively new site. A European based news and blog aggregator, Wikio began ranking the top 300 blogs late last year, and currently tracks around 37,000 blogs (compared to the millions tracked by Technorati).

There are significant differences in the ways Technorati and Wikio compile their rankings and this makes me wonder: which of these two sites rank blogs more accurately?

I discovered Wikio's Top Blogs lists quite recently while researching the most popular Blogger powered blogs. While many of the sites featured in the overall list are familiar, I was intrigued to see that Wikio also ranks blogs according to category, such as Technology, Food and Wine, Politics and Music.

The concept I find most interesting about Wikio's blog ranking system is that only links within blog posts contribute towards a blog's authority and rank.

Technorati offers two forms of blog ranking:

• Authority: This is the number of unique blogs which link back to your blog (the higher your blog's authority, the better!). If the same blog links to yours ten times, only the most recent link will count towards your blog's authority.


• Rank: The number one ranked blog is the one which has generated the most unique links (the greatest authority) over the past six months. Your blog rank may not be unique: for example, if your Technorati rank is 10,043 there are 10,043 ranks between you and the top ranking blog, and other blogs may share the same authority as yours. The lower the number of your Technorati rank, the closer you are to the top.

With Technorati, any form of link can pass "link love" to your blog: this means links in posts, links in blogrolls and any other links present in the blog template.

Because Technorati tracks all types of "blog reactions", it's ranking system can easily be gamed.

Technorati's Flawed Algorithm

According to Patrick Altoft, there are four major methods of manipulating Technorati rank:

1. Create a popular plugin


2. Exchange links


3. Create popular blogging software


4. Design a popular blog theme

Each of these methods generates "artificial" backlinks to the author's blog: rather than be editorial (deliberately created by the blog editor to reference another's writings, authority or newsworthiness), these links may be present in the blog layout or blogroll, but not within blog posts.

Blogs which have used any of these methods to generate backlinks or awareness of their product are then manually removed from the Technorati Top 100 list.

Jackbook, for example, should rank at number 43 in the top 100 list:

But when we look where Jackbook.com should feature in the top 100 list, Jacky's listing is nowhere to be seen...

Other sites to be banned from the Top 100 list include Blogger-Templates, Binary Moon and even John Chow!

Does this mean Wikio's algorithm is a more reliable method of ranking blogs?

Wikio's Top Blogs List is Not Without its Faults...

Wikio ranks according to the number of incoming links from other blogs which are found within articles. Using this system is a much more reliable method of determining authority as such links are rarely bought, and are not generated by plugins, widgets and templates.

Although I prefer Wikio's system of ranking, I think there are still a few drawbacks to this system:

• Only a fraction of the actual number of blogs are tracked, meaning those which are included in Wikio's database may rank much more highly than they relatively should.


• Rankings are only updated once per month, whereas Technorati updates rankings several times per day.


• Wikio is a much younger system, and has yet to achieve the popularity (and recognition) held by Technorati.

Wikio's categorical blog rankings do serve the general blogosphere more accurately than Technorati (which seems rather biased towards technology based sites), but as there are few categories (and fewer blogs listed in the database), there is still much which can be improved upon.

What do you think?

Have you explored Wikio to see which blogs rank highly in your chosen niche? How do you think this system compares to Technorati as a means of ranking blogs?

I'd love to know your opinions on which system ranks blogs more fairly, if indeed you think that blogs should be ranked at all!

Please share your opinions by leaving a comment below.

The Entrecard Ebook, Multiple Blogs and Get 2000ec for Free!

I've always been partial to a freebie, so when I heard about Entrecard and the possibility of earning free advertising by using the Entrecard widget, I couldn't wait to see how this would work out.

A few months down the line, Entrecard has certainly proved itself as one of the most useful free services available to Bloggers. I wondered how Entrecard could make this free service even better, until today an email from the Entrecard team landed in my inbox which brought a great big smile to my face.

Link more than one blog to your Entrecard account

To vastly improve the current service, the Entrecard team have today enabled multiple blogs to be administered from one account, or merge two existing accounts together.

This means you can now add more blogs to your account, or merge two different accounts together in order to manage your blogs in one place.

You can easily transfer entrecard credits between accounts when merging them, or switch "identity" when dropping cards to allow both of your blogs to receive equal exposure (or not, if you prefer!).

What's more, if you add more than one blog to your Entrecard account before 25th of June, you will be entered into a prize draw where you could win 15,000 Entrecard credits.

The Free Entrecard eBook

If you haven;t already tried Entrecard as a means of blog promotion, there has never been a better time to sign up.

Entrecard have released a free eBook which explains everything you need to know, from discovering how to drop cards and advertise on other blogs to strategic ad placement and "dropping like a pro".

Even experienced Entrecarders could learn lots more about the service by reading this free download. I've only skimmed the surface so far, but from what I've read already I would strongly recommend this to anyone even remotely interested in using Entrecard or seeking means of free blog promotion.

Download your free Entrecard eBook and let us know what you think about this.

2000 Free Entrecard Credits?

Yes, you did read the title right!

In order to help spread the word about the Entrecard service, the team are offering 2000 Entrecard credits to anyone who writes about the new developments and eBook in their own blog.

This really is an inspired marketing tactic, and yes, this incentive did inspire me to write this blog post (as 2000 credits will come in very useful for the blog strategies I'm planning over the next month or so...). I'd hate to keep this information to myself though, so if you're an Entrecard user (or are interested in using this service), do pop over to the EC blog and read what all the fuss is about, as I'm sure 2000 credits will be useful for you too :)

PPP blogs suffer the greatest Google slap yet!

Today it seems almost all blogs which use Pay Per Post have been reduced to a PageRank of ZERO!

I could hardly believe Google would stoop so very low as to punish bloggers in this way when I first heard the news this morning. After the recent lowering of PR for blogs which use Text-Link-Ads and the like, it seems to me that Google are punishing anyone and everyone who uses an alternative (and dare I say, better paid) alternative to AdSense monetization in their blogs!

For those of you who do use Pay-Per-Post, please don't worry too much. From what I read in the forums over there, PPP are looking into alternative methods of ranking blogs for paid posts. You can check out this thread for information on this subject.

Thankfully I don't feature any paid posts on this site, so my PR has remained stable. I am so sorry for all of you whose PageRank has been reduced to zero. I don't yet know for certain if the strange Pagerank behavior is a temporary glitch or an all round slap for paid bloggers, but you can be sure that once I know more about this, I will be sure to post the info here for you all.

Check your backlinks with this free tool!

The number of backlinks (blogs and websites which feature a link back to your blog) can be a determining factor of your blog's popularity, and can also affect your Google PageRank. So here is a free tool you can use to discover how many backlinks your blog has, which also includes details of the PageRank from these links. You may be pleasantly surprised...

To use this tool, simply enter your full blog URL in the box below and click the "Check" button. The page will then update with listings of all the sites which link to your blog, including an accurate indication of their PageRank.

Your domain:   (eg. www.bloggerbuster.com or yourblog.blogspot.com)

Powered by iWEBTOOL

If you find this tool useful, please consider subscribing to the Blogger Buster feed to receive updates of new tools, templates and tutorials.

PageRank for Blogger Buster (Finally!)

It seems that Google have finally updated PageRank, and I'm so happy to say that Blogger Buster now has a PageRank of 4! After my frustrations of having a zero rank for so many months this is such good news for me, and even more than I could have hoped for considering my site is still rather young.

Unfortunately though, it seems my happiness isn't shared by everyone. Last week, Blog Bloke reported strange goings-on with Google's PageRank system when his blog's ranking suddenly plummeted, then started to gradually increase. By the looks of things, a few of the major bloggers have noticed a drastic change in their PageRank, as can be read in Andy Beard's take on this.

As always, the secret to PageRank success is a closely guarded secret, so no-one really knows why certain sites have been "penalized" while others have gained from this recent change.

Rumors report that Google are updating the PageRank system, punishing those who use paid links, spam and generally bad content. But:

• It has taken MONTHS for this latest PageRank update, which has punished new sites by only offering a PR of zero or "n/a" until this week!


• Established and valued sites now have a reduced PageRank!


• There is no consistency, or even an explanation from Google about what is now considered "bad" for PR status!

Where is the fairness in this, Google?

More and more people are becoming disillusioned by Google, and there is decreasing incentive for us to play by the rules. Yet when many services rely on a site's PR to determine their value, and when visitors use PR to decide if a blog is worth reading, is there a viable alternative?

Please do let me know how the recent PageRank changes have affected your own sites by leaving your comments and opinions below.

Technorati Tags: pagerank | google | alexa | value | content

Blogdire - A new blog directory

Today I received news of a new blog directory: Blogdire. This directory is free to use and it's quite simple to add your blog to this directory too! Also included is a blog search engine for you to search other blogs for the posts you like.

There are several qualities I like about this directory, most notably the inclusion of recent posts from random blogs on the front page, which link to the blogs quoted and thus help provide more exposure. Also Blogdire uses a tagging system to help you find blogs of interest (or to help readers find your blog) complete with a tag cloud which helps us to understand the most popular tags currently available.

To submit your blog to Blogdire, simply visit the home page and click on the "Add your blog" link near the top right of the page. Then fill out your details, including your blog URL and description. The instructions state that you should include a button link in your blog to ensure your listing is successful, but this is a small non-intrusive button which should fit neatly alongside any others you may also be displaying.

Although this directory is quite new, it does seem to be having a lot of interest from bloggers and many new blogs are being added.

Please let me now what you think to this new blog directory by posting your comments below.

Technorati Tags: blog+directory | directories | blogdire

Free SEO stats display box - my birthday gift to you!

I discovered a free online tool which allows you to display a box like this in your blog, featuring Pagerank, Alexa, MSN, users online and many more SEO stats!

To create your own, simply visit this page on MyPagerank.net, input your website details and choose the stats you wish to display. You will then be given the Javascript code to place in an HTML/Javascript widget in your blog, as well as a preview of the widget.

As you can deduce from the title, today is my birthday. While I'd hoped to post something great for you all in honor of this day, I have to admit, this wasn't the gift I had hoped to post on site today... I had actually hoped to have the new site template ready instead, though unfortunately I came across too many setbacks and it's still not ready yet :(

The good news is that the extra time I'm taking over the design will make it even better once the whole thing is done! So far, I've created a whole new Web 2.0 style design which should load faster and be much easier to use. Tools and templates will be much easier to find than they are now, along ease of subscription, inline comments and a lack of unnecessary distractions from the content.

As soon as I've ironed out most of the kinks, I will post a preview of the new template for you all to see. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this free SEO statistics widget instead.

Technorati Tags: happy+birthday | bloggerbuster | seo | stats | display | widget | pagerank+display | alexa+rank