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IzeaRank goes live, can it fight PageRank?

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IzeaRank went live today, a new service that was created as a result of Google’s punishment on blogs and sites that sold text links without no-follow tags on them (my blog was one of them, went from PR7 to PR5).

It’s to be the alternative ranking system to PageRank, besides Alexa, Technorati and Compete.

How it works? Unlike other ranking systems, the RealRank scoring algorithm is public. The system weights blogs 70% on daily unique visitors, 20% by daily active inbound links and 10% by daily page views as reported by ITK. Participants can choose to expose just their RealRank score or expand reporting to include other data such as pageviews and visits.

How good is IzeaRank’s algorithm?

Do you see any weakness in the algorithm? I personally think the algorithm relies too much (70%) on the daily unique visitors. While daily uniques are the one thing that all advertisers are interested in, it’s also very easy to rig (i.e arrange the outcome of by means of deceit) such a system. I think it’s easier to rig IzeaRank than Alexa. Because it heavily relies on daily uniques, and it cannot determine if the unique visitors are coming from legitimate sites or from bots. Because, there are sites that can send you thousands of unique visitors for a few bucks. Of course, these visitors won’t stick on your blog (i.e won’t become your blog readers, or subscribe to your RSS), but your unique visitor stats will definitely skyrocket. And that’s what matters for IzeaRank to rank your site higher in the list.

On the other hand, Google can detect such activities, especially if you are using their Google Analytics on your site.

The real challenge for IzeaRank

Google has a No.1 search engine to back up its PageRank system, what about Izea? Can it back up its RealRank with anything?

Google has the power to include your site in its search index, or kick you out of it. If your blog shows up on the first page of Google’s search results page for a particular important keyword, I am sure many advertisers will be rushing to advertise on your blog. Also if you have a high PR blog, (major) advertisers will be interested to advertise on your blog.

On the other hand, if your blog has PR0 or is nowhere to be seen in the Google’s SERPs, then I don’t think many advertisers will be interested to advertise on your blog. (There are of course exceptions for this, like JohnChow who does not need Google for making money online).

But what I am driving is, can IzeaRank (or RealRank, whatever the name is) actually compete with or replace PageRank? I don’t think so. I think it will become one more stats tool to get a better overall picture of a site. I don’t think it can be used independently. You will still have to consider PageRank, Alexa, Compete, Technorati, RSS Count + IzeaRank to know if the site is doing any good or worth advertising on. For setting your own ad rates, all of them should be considered too.

RealRank tracks only if you want to

Izea’s RealRank won’t track your blog (or site) unless you place a script inside your blog’s HTML. You need to first register for RealRank, then get your script, and place it inside your < head > tags. After which it will start to track your blog’s stats.

I think that’s a major disadvantage, especially for advertisers. Because at the moment, if the advertiser wants to check out any site’s stats, all he needs to do is to, check its PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati Rank, and Compete Rank. All of them do not require site owner to install anything. So in that sense, IzeaRank is special.

What’s your thoughts on this new service?

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• Use Microsoft’s Search Engine and get Cash Rebates