AdesBlog.com

Alexa announced that it has modified its ranking system. Apparently, it’s now tracking from multiple sources (what are these sources, it’s not mentioned) to rank the sites. Previously it used to rely only on its Alexa Toolbar statistics to rank the sites. And the system was hugely flawed. I guess now we can expect more realistic stats from Alexa.

Due to this new ranking system, more people are now reporting that their sites have dropped in Alexa rankings. This holds true with my blog too. Now my blog’s weekly rank is at 88,172 and three months average is 133,396. So goodbye Top50K with the new system ;) How is your blog’s stats doing with the new system?

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?

Most probably you all know 45n5’s Top100 list right? It’s a list of Make Money Online blogs based on stats from Alexa, PR and Technorati. How you wanted RSS count to be included in the rating calculation right? But Mark of 45n5 have been rather slow in improving his toplist, and even the updates were taking quite some time lately. (once in 2 weeks?)

PopWeblog Top100

PopWeblog is a new website that does the same thing as 45n5, rating Make Money Online blogs, but with RSS count included in the rating criteria.

It’s a cut-throat competition on the net, you miss something and do not improve the obvious. Someone else will come up with a better service that is better than your service.

While it’s still a new website (popweblog), I see that many of the top bloggers have already subscribed for the list. I think it’s the curiosity of “how will I rank against others with RSS count included” that makes them subscribe to this website.

Rusdy, the author of the website sent me an email about it. And I just had to sign up and see how my blog ranks.

Tip: Therefore, next time you develop a nice service, send an email directly to the bloggers, preferably to the influential bloggers. If your service is really good, I am sure at least 80% of them will use the service, and some will even promote it for free for you on their blogs (like i am doing now).

So check it out popweblog.com

TapeFailure.com that I blogged here is shutting down it’s operations. It was a nice online tool for usability and UI design testing. With this tool you could also track the behaviors of the users on your blog, since it can record people’s mouse movements and clicks in a video.

Email said:

Unfortunately, at the end of this month Tapefailure will be closing its doors. Why? Due to both lack of funding and a need to rebuild the system in a more stable manner.

The technology is definitely viable, but the current function of the Tapefailure system isn’t quite there yet. There are a number of things that need to be redeveloped and redesigned from the bottom-up.

During 2008, I will be working to rebuild Tapefailure with a stronger set of features, a new look, and a new name. I will also be looking to introduce even more innovative analytics methods in the new service.

I would like to thank all my customers for their continued support and patronage and I can only hope that you will join me again when the new service is launched.

Thank you,
Joshua Gross
Tapefailure Founder

Well, let’s hope Joshua comes up with an improved version of this service soon. Good luck Josh!

BlogMetrics is a WP Plugin that displays a summary of your blog’s stats. Once installed it creates a submenu called Blog Metrics under your Dashboard.

It displays average number of posts per month, average number of words per post, average number of comments per post (without your own comments) and average number of words used in comments to posts.

The plugin also shows separate stats for different authors (if the blog has more than one author). I think that’s a great feature, it allows you to see the performance of each author (in terms of post length, comments, # of posts per month…etc). This could be useful to blogs like www.bloggingtips.com where there are many authors contributing to the blog.

Here is my stats

As you can see below, now I am writing longer posts than before 534 words per post, compared to 203 words per post before (stats goes back to 2005, I used to write short posts then). Readers are also writing longer comments now, average 177 words per comment compared to 73 words per comment before.

The stats shows 2 authors (above) because in the middle of this year when I went for a holiday, the blog was guest-blogged by one of the users (his status was set to author during this time).

Plugin page: www.joostdevalk.nl/wordpress/blog-metrics/

BlogRush had removed over 10,000 blogs from its system. This is one of the many measures that has been taken by Reese to make this struggling but promising project into success.

Previously it has been suffering very low click-through rates. People were reporting some 0.0XX click-through rates. (and some even 0.00917).

From Reese’s last post, this move should reflect in better click-through rates for all the blogs in the network in general, and it will also improve the quality of the blogs in the network. Because you won’t be seeing any posts from these 10,000 blogs anymore… and that means (hopefully) you will only see better posts in the widget (see top-left widget - are the posts good enough in the widget?).

Did you receive this email?

If you have received the following email, then your blog is one of the blogs that was not banned.

But if you didn’t… or if you got a different email, then don’t be upset. The good thing is that, you can re-apply for inclusion. Just login to your account and follow the instructions provided.

If your blog is banned then you will also notice that the widget won’t show on your blog anymore.

Will I be using the Widget?

I do not think I will be using the BlogRush widget just yet. Because some of the things I would like to see changed in BlogRush widgets have not been incorporated yet. Particularly, the look and feel customization and size customization options.

BlogRush ‘n’ you… so far

What is your opinion on BlogRush? Have you signed up for it? Have you passed the latest quality audit? If yes, are you more optimistic that you will get more clicks now? How BlogRush has been performing in general for your blog? Has your blog been banned? If yes, are you angry, upset…? Please share your thoughts…