Comments on: One Year in the Blogosphere

By: Armchair Anarchist

Armchair Anarchist — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:46:18 +0000

Sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman; I raise my hat to you. [raises hat]

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:24:37 +0000

AA: Damn, I haven’t updated those sidebar links in forever. I’ve stuck you in there. I’ve been trying to keep the list short and sweet, but I might have to expand it out a bit.

Robby: Glad to have inspired you. Feel free to link anywhere on my blog.

By: Robby Keller

Robby Keller — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:44:35 +0000

That is quiet an accomplishment I hope to have those kind of results. I love this article it gives me hope I have added a post about your blog on my blog encouraging people to write loads of content on their blogs. My blog is about advertising on the net. And I love the post I would love to add the content to my blog so the readers can see it. With your permission of course. I am a new blogger but im constantly learning. Thanks!

By: Armchair Anarchist

Armchair Anarchist — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:47:10 +0000

Re the Technorati ranking: I think one of the main arbiters of those rankings is the number of inbound links you’ve got from other sites. Like with Google, if you get a lot of people to link to your site, it helps tremendously. Some may say disproportionately, but what do they know?

Quite true, and it goes to show that the old line about reciprocal links is a truism. When I started out, I linked every site I read regularly, and got a few back in return. Then every time someone new appeared in my T’rati links, I made a point of linking back. Smacks somewhat of collectivism (which despite my nom de plum I’m no great fan of; I’m more of an individualist) but if it works, it works, right? I’m waiting for the ‘papal nod’ from Scalzi, really – Futurismic was in there, but when I personally make his list, I’ll feel I’ve truly arrived!

If you’d *really* like to big me up, maybe you’d put me in your sidebar?

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:24:54 +0000

AA: Well, congrats to you too. Y’know, I meant to actually single you out in this post as being the person who’s probably linked to this blog the most, but, um, I totally forgot. So a hearty thanks to you, Paul!

Re the Technorati ranking: I think one of the main arbiters of those rankings is the number of inbound links you’ve got from other sites. Like with Google, if you get a lot of people to link to your site, it helps tremendously. Some may say disproportionately, but what do they know?

By: Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:29:52 +0000

The first post of yours I read was the one on Bruce Springsteen’s “Meeting at the River.” I liked it so much (it’s not often I find people who can write intelligently and interestingly with neither condecension or apology about popular-music songs) that I kept coming back for more.

By: Armchair Anarchist

Armchair Anarchist — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:13:50 +0000

Happy bloggerversary, old chap!

Wow; I’m coming up for my “year in the ’sphere” anniversary, too. Likewise, I jumped in as an absolute nobody and had to learn the T’rati/RSS/SEO/FTW stuff through osmosis, and had a domain change (Blogger to private, keeping the old content) about eight months ago. Interesting things to note in contrast to your points:

- I have a lot more posts than you (579), but that’s because I started as a lame BoingBoing clone pitching at my mates from local forums. The first six months of content are, frankly, shite – but I’ve left them because I don’t believe in sweeping stuff under the carpet. You actually have decent content all through though, and better things to do than spin out rubbish on your website, unlike a certain someone …

- 383 comments, and Dr. Dave’s Spam Karma has caught 6474 spams since being installed, so similar ratio there. However most of my comments (esp. the early ones) are, like the content they accompany, guff.

- The *really* interesting thing, to my mind at least: at my current domain, I’ve gone from a few hundred visitors a month (February) to over 4,000 (November) – most of whom don’t hang around, sadly, but a few do. I now have around 85 regular RSS readers, up from a starting figure of six back in May when counting began. Not a patch on your figures … but my T’rati ranking is just a shade above 30,000. How the hell does that work? I figure it means you get a lot of visitors who aren’t ‘into’ blogs as such, but come for your content and who you are, and I get my visits from being an active (if uninspiring) part of the network. Your thoughts?