Thanks to John Scalzi I spent some time looking through the new technorati rankings for books because, like everybody else, I want to see where I was ranked.
I expect these rankings to change on a daily basis, but at the time I ran the search, I was ranked 148. Not bad, if a little high. I recognized some blogs ahead of me and have no doubt that they have a bigger readership (and linkership) than I do. No probs. I kept going down and then it hit me.
Where the hell is Neil Gaiman? Oh…Neil is sitting at 215.
I’m more popular than Neil! We may live in the same state, but victory is mine! No longer will the talk be about Prince and Neil Gaiman, no, no! Prince and Joe Sherry. FTW!!!!
What’s that? The rankings are probably inaccurate? Oh, alright. Can I still beat up Chuck Norris? Fine.
I listed out the top ten (as of 12:00 pm Central Time 10/14) and also most of the other ones I’ve recognized or read. No claims are made for getting everything or for the rankings to not change by the time you read this.
I would expect SF Signal and Torque Control to be a little higher. I can accept my ranking relative to Nicola Griffith’s. That might be accurate in terms of readership (I’m making this up as I go along), but then I realized that my ranking was higher than Neil Gaiman, Jeff Vandermeer, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, Mary Robinette Kowal, and freaking Galley Cat.
The hell?
Galley Cat is probably a top 20 blog at the very least, if not higher. Top 10. Galley Cat gets hella links.
I may have missed it, but I didn’t see Livejournal blogs in there. I suspect that would change the game quite a bit (and would also help the number of links back to here).
My take on this is that the technorati ranking is just about as accurate as my sitemeter counter, which is to say that it probably missed at least a quarter of all visits / links, if not half. Sitemeter is better at telling me when I’m getting tracks from livejournal, but Technorati is horrible at that. There’s probably a reverse from something else.
Regardless, here’s a snapshot at one particular time.
1. Jacket Copy
2. Whatever
3. Becky’s Book Reviews
4. Chasing Ray
5. Jen Robinson’s Book Page
6. The Book Smugglers
7. Romancing the Blog
8. if: book
9. Maw Books
10. Angieville
13. Fantasy Book Critic
15. Temple Library Reviews
16. Fantasy Café (tie)
19. SciFiGuy.ca
24. SF Signal
49. Grasping for the Wind
69. Fantasy & SciFi Lovin’ News and Reviews
72. Torque Control
148. Adventures in Reading (wooo!)
214. Ask Nicola
215. Neil Gaiman’s Journal
218. Ecstatic Days
283. Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist (tie)
283. Mary Robinette Kowal (tie)
323. Fantasy Book News & Reviews (tie)
396. Galley Cat (tie)
I'm not sure how technorati rates these within the category either. It may be interesting ti also not each blog's "Authority". While one might expect the higher-ranked book blogs to have the higher authority (lower number), I suspect that is not the case and you'll see, for example, Gaiman's popularity show through.
ReplyDeletefor whatever reason, technorati hates me - I couldn't even find my blog on the list and I can't figure out why that would be the case.
ReplyDeleteBut, this just confirms my thoughts on Technorati - it's actually so flawed that it's pretty much completely useless. They seem to lack anywhere near the capacity to acutally do what they say they do.
I think that the blogosphere would be a better place is Technorati disappeared (that is if anyone noticed).
Un:Bound doesn't show up on Technorati either, I have no idea how it works. I'm not sure what it's supposed to show?
ReplyDeleteYours was one of the missing blogs I looked for, Ken. Larry's was the other. Also not on the list or anywhere to be found (as of the last time I searched).
ReplyDeleteI wonder if technorati didn't flip their authority standards where now higher numbers rule...and if so, Neil's just hasn't caught up.
I don't put much stock in Technorati (or even my sitemeter counter), but it was another toy to fiddle with to see how much (or little) people may or may not be paying attention to me.
Which reminds me...I better get reading so I can actually REVIEW something this month.
As far as I can tell, it has to do with links leading to your site that get that high of an authority, but I think it's inaccurate. There is no way I am in top 20 in that category. Also out of the top 100 list I also say that my blog has different authority and is around 2762 or something down the line.
ReplyDeleteOk, I couldn't even FIND Fantasy Debut. But my dinky little writing blog, which has all of 20 followers and I never promote? Number 206! I laughed so hard I got tears in my eyes!
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see if my new blog, Debuts & Reviews, shows up on this list in a timely manner.