They [Wikio] say that:
The position of a blog in the Wikio ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. These links are dynamic, which means that they are backlinks or links found within articles.Well that seems all rather incestuous doesn’t it? You link to your mates and they link back – that’s why Dale & Co remain where they are and why it is so difficult for Greens to break in to the big time.
Only links found in the RSS feed are included. Blogrolls are not taken into account, and the weight of any given link increases according to how recently it was published. We thus hope to provide a classification that is more representative of the current influence levels of the blogs therein.
Moreover, the weight of a link depends on the linking blog’s position in the Wikio ranking. With our algorithm, the weight of a link from a blog that is more highly ranked is greater than that of a link from a blog that is less well ranked.
So, to that evidence. Earlier this year we had a new kid on the block – a “Lemon” [Liberal Democrat]. His name is Jesse Boucher and he started a blog with an open Site Meter, now closed. He does not get much in the way of traffic, maybe 2-3 visits per day if that and if you look at Ice Rocket there is only ONE reference to his blog from the also local Barkingside 21. Yet B21, according to Wikio is on 3833 whereas our Jesse is on, wait for it, 2796. Now, the link is from a lower ranking blog and is the ONLY one so how does our Jess get his rating? Beats me.
So, I thought I’d have a look elsewhere. I tried Technorati but Jim Jepps wasn’t ranked at all. That can’t be right. So here’s the Top 24 Green Blogs as per Ice Rocket. And what a surprise they are: The daddy of Green blogging has to settle for third place and NUMBER ONE is Cherie Booth’s brother [although he’s never admitted it] Philip at Ruscombe Green. Well done mate.
1 - 7963 Ruscombe Green
2 - 8281 Another Green World
3 - 12032 Daily (Maybe)
4 - 15107 Greenerblog
5 - 19145 Coventry Green Voice
6 - 22779 Barkingside 21
7 - 23145 Ruperts Read
8 - 24978 Scortched Earth
9 - 29047 Flesh Is Grass
10 - 32094 Green Reading
11 - 39219 Greenmans Occasional Organ
12 - 43950 The Third Estate
13 - 45291 Green Ladywell
14 - 46462 Dispatches from the cat
15 - 52484 The Green Room
16 - 78115 Gaian Economics
17 - 86933 George Monbiot
18 - 115226 Weggis
19 - 132072 Greens Engage
20 - 140199 Jonathan Poritt
21 - 162495 Mysterious World Matt Blackall
22 - 192762 Green Construction
23 - 225239 Green Gabbles
24 - 282045 Peter Cranie
So all those links above now count towards the "Wikio" rankings, except that the weighting for this unranked blog is minus 10, so sorry about that.
Why do I always come second?
ReplyDeleteHa ha!
That's the difference between a book writer and a book maker!
ReplyDeleteIncestuous is the word!
ReplyDeleteAnd who are Ice Rocket? Presumably not David Cameron's in-laws ... maybe Nicke Clegg's, or Caroline Lucas's ...?
What do you think of this critique of PageRank and Nofollow?
That would be this one:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.inverudio.com/programs/WordPressBlog/NofollowReciprocity.php
I'm not sure what to make of it. I will ask No. 1 son.
ReplyDeleteWeggis I'm just checking I've understood correctly I think it may be because I am linked through from Lib Dem Voice and Lib Dem Blogs but correct me if I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteI can only guess at which definition of lemon he is using. Anyway, I think the reason for the position of the blogs is that my blog is linked through from the Lib Dem Blogs website. I would assume the Greens have something similar.
ReplyDeleteIndeed we do, plus Green Feed. I am listed there and in several other places but those links don't count - see Wikio quote above. Only links that show up on the RSS feeds count.
ReplyDeleteWell done Weggis, I hadnt appreciated the hotbed of contoversy wikio was.
ReplyDeleteYou highlight an important issue that Philip Virgo has also noted, namely that the internet merely masquerades as an anarchic system when it is in fact a cartel and "one of the most concentrated mediums the world has ever known"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/when-it-meets-politics/2009/07/a-cartel-masquerading-as-anarc-1.html
You might add also "and one of the most easily / heavily surveilled, censored and controlled." Not very reliable, in short.
Re Wikio, the Wikipedia entry notes that "The Wikio site is blacklisted for Wikimedia use since 20 September 2008 based on COIBot evaluation." Whatever that means.
Any response from son#1, sifu?
seeing him later today.
ReplyDeleteOK. It seems quite reasonable to me. When Google bot is trawling the web it follows the links it finds except when it encounters rel = “nofollow”. These do not count towards page rankings in the search engine.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the source code for this page you will find that all those links in the main post above plus the ones in the side bar are all free links. But this one in the comments will have rel = “nofollow”, which is inserted automatically by Blogger.
The point is that all those free links have been inserted by me the site owner and are freely given. But clickable links in the comments may be inserted by anybody who cares to comment, ie not the site owner. Free links in the comments would open up the possibility for anyone to create a spare ID and go round all the top blogs and sites inserting links to their site in order to boost their ranking.
The same is true for Wikipedia because it operates as a collective. Without “nofollow” it would be open to abuse by anyone and everyone.
Anyhoo, now that I know about it, if I want to link to a site to criticise it, like say the Daily Mail or “the hated proto-Hagueite crypto-Thatcherist lickspittle and wearer of gaudy bourgeois silk ties (symbol of oppression of the silkworm) Iain Dale” I now know to put “nofollow” in the link.
So thank you HD for pointing it out.
Glad to be of use, anything to dampen the rise of not so crypto-xxxxer Dale, the serial deleter of any comment too challenging of his cosy worldview.
ReplyDeleteBut my real intent was to ask what your opinion is on the concentrating effect of nofollow. Does nofollow really mean that big websites get bigger and more powerful while smaller ones fade away, as the writer suggests? Doesn't PageRank and systems like Wikio have the same effect?
To be honest the way I understand nofollow is being used it is quite benign and would have at best a marginal effect on concentration.
ReplyDeleteSearch page ranking: look if you put in "weggis66" to a search engine this blog comes out top and as you can see from the hit counter it's not exactly hot property.
I'm not sure that many know about Wikio, or take any notice of it, apart from Jesse Boucher.
The concentrating effect occurs everywhere regardless of the parameters. The football premier league for eg. It's the nature of the beast.
When we fight back and defeat it, we become the Beast.
"if you put in "weggis66" Yes and who's going to do that (apart from the odd weirdo, hehe) no the test is how high, or low, does your blog come when someone searches for topics that you focus on, compared to other people's sites. I'd say that it's quite important who is un a position to affect that. Why should ordinary folks like you and me have less say over environmental issues, for example, than "top" people and their businesses with lots of money to pay for PageRank sculpting and SEO and all that xxxx?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's just the beast (nature) or The Beast.
Funnily enough I remembered yesterday that I had signed up for Google Analytics in Feb 2009, so I had a look to see what my top pages are.
ReplyDelete“Techno Cars” and “Green Heels”. Try Googling those on images.
Yes, all the really insightful stuff is nowhere. Bah!
Actually until you mentioned it I wasn't aware of the Wikio ranking but obviously am now. I have used wikio when searching for blogs before but that is about it. Nice to be singled out for ire again. Starting to see the 'all publicity, good or bad, is nevertheless, publicity' school of thought. But I thought I would actually say that I enjoy reading your blog even if getting a little pissed off with you chipping away with your bickering. Even I have stopped because it's boring and not very constructive.
ReplyDeleteYou enjoy reading my blog because it's boring!?
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Was this one of your blog names that flew away?
The Orange UFO? No not this time LOL. Wish I had thought of it as it would have been a hell of a lot less trouble. BAH!
ReplyDelete