While it may prove that I’m not particularly well-read when it comes to blogs and sites about blogs (ironically, for a writer at The Blog Herald), I’d not come across the eBizMBA web site before, until I was sent a link to one of its latest articles: 30 Most Popular Blogs for August 2007.
The site claims that most “blog popularity-ranking services” rely on only one piece of data, such as link popularity, number of RSS subscribers, Alexa ranking, and so on.
eBizMBA claims to provide a more accurate ranking of blogs by taking multiple sources: “a combination of Inbound Links from Yahoo Site Explore (entire site not including internal pages), Alexa Rank, and Compete and Quantcast U.S. Unique Monthly visitor data. Blogs that are only a part of a non-Blog site are not included (i.e. Google Blogs).”
Unsurprisingly, many of the blogs at the top of other lists are also here, with Gizmodo leading the pack, followed by TMZ, Engadget, LifeHacker, The Huffington Post, PerezHilton, Gawker, Kataku, Treehugger, Ars Technica (is this really a blog?), BoingBoing, and TechCrunch.
Statistics can be used to prove anything, though, and as we can’t get a look at the algorithm used to create the rankings, it’s very easy to argue against them (particularly for sites not on the list that believe they should be).
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It is interesting that they do not use the Technorati rating as a part of their scheme. They use total inbound links which is something that could be toyed with I suppose. The other rankings are also subject to manipulation which is why few people use them.
The idea of most popular blog is, in my estimation, an attempt to help people sort out the mess that is the current blogosphere. By using mass conduct as an indicator. The trouble is that we cannot measure traffic, popularity, or true value easily when the means are all subject to manipulation or personal judgment.
I’m not sure I have the answer, but I think that what people want is to find people with common interests who have identified blogs that they find useful. The Facebook blog addition may be a help. I do look at MyBlogLog once in a while but not much. I just try to visit sites featured by the blogs I read and decide for myself.