Just before Easter I was ranked at just over 19,000 by 
Technorati, the internet search engine which tracks every blog in the world.
In the last week, thanks to my hectic home and work schedule which resulted in light blogging, I dropped 10,000 places, but am still ranked above 30,000. Just. And my blog was ranked as high as 13,000 a year ago when I had more time to spend on it.
I really value my Technorati ranking rather than the number of readers I have because it demonstrates that bloggers are linking to me and my posts. However, I believe if you use Google Reader to peruse a favourite post, which I often do, then it does not register as a hit. So you cannot accurately know the number of your readers or where they are from. Please correct me if I am wrong.
As Wikipedia states that Technorati was indexing 112 million blogs last December, perhaps being ranked at 29,000 globally is not too bad after all. I won’t lose any sleep over it, but will try not to drop any lower, however busy I am.
Do you worry about your rankings at all? How do you assess the success of your blog?
Hi Ellee,
My blog is about my speaking engagements and passes on presentation skills tips to other speakers of varying levels of experience. Yes, I’m delighted that it has risen from being ranked around 8 million with Technorati to just under 900,000 in its first 6 months but I write it for 3 reasons:
1. To acknowledge the hospitality I receive from organisations of all kinds as a guest speaker;
2. To pass on tips to readers;
3. To let the world know about my services.
In other words, acknowledge, advise – and advertise!
Being ranked at 29,000 is quite staggering!
Nick, I never followed my Technorati rankings until after I wrote this post about why my blog was banned in China https://elleeseymour.com/2007/03/12/why-is-my-blog-banned-in-china/
And Courtney Hamilton mentioned it towards the end. Up until then, I had never followed it at all. He opened my eyes about it. I don’t want to become obsessed about it, however.
And congratulations Nick, it sounds like you are doing very well with your rankings too. I write about public speaking too and hope to be judging a Toastmasters competition in Cambridge this week.
Ellee
We’re all down. The Usmanov cross-links just dropped out of the figures.
Matt
Matt, that’s interesting, thanks for letting me know.
Technorati needs to be able to register those who use Readers.
Matt, I just wondered if you are down by 10,000 too in a week.
Jean-Luc, maybe one day it will.
I’m down from about 8500 to about 10450 (501 authority to 426 currently). Working on it!
I blogged it here last Sunday.
Jean-Luc. Technorati has nothing to do with who reads what using which software; it measures links between blogs.
Mine took a bit of tumble too after the Usmanov cross-linkings worked out – Technorati only measures the last six month’s worth of links. I’m hovering just outside the 10,000 mark. I didn’t realise Technorati tracked so many blogs though.
Congratulations! Very impressive! I havent a clue what my ranking is.
I just blog for my friends to catch up on stuff and have been really touched by meeting new friends through the media.
I wouldn’t worry about the ratings I have seen too many people on flickr getting up tight and messed about because of their ratings! Statistics are always a little bit subjective!
Well, if mine goes down any further it will be at zero! Interesating what Matt W says. It does bother me but then I think of all the nice people who comment, and then it doesn’t.
Ranking highly isn’t necessarily a measure of success and I don’t tend to bother with Technorati that much.
Ellee, the best “success” are thise sites which are the best monetized.
Jeremy, yes, good point about the money. I’m working on that.
My Technorati rating has dipped from a high of 80,000 or so to 158,000 or so this afternoon. My PR number, which has held steady at 4 through the latest survey, sometimes shows 0. My Alexa rating, which once was 300,000 something, is down to 684,000 or so.
Technorati fall off can be explained by links going ‘stale’ — links over six months old aren’t counted.
Sitemeter, on the other hand, is trending upwards again, after dipping in the last quarter of ’07 as I started another project that took up a good chunk of my blogging time.
So — all the numbers tell me different things at the same time.
Pretty much like numbers always do.
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