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1. 1

   Devils' Kitchen

   Stephen,

   Damn! I appear to have dropped five places to 52! It’s difficult to measure blogs by links, isn’t it?

   The Kitchen, for instance, receives a long of links partly because I am part of a cabal of robustly-worded, libertarian political blogs; although I have relatively few blogs linking to me, the vast majority of those links are from other people discussing what I’ve written. Because of this, my links : blogs ratio is about 4 : 1.

   Someone like Girl With A One-Track Mind is linked to by a lot of blogs (and a lot of people read her) but the number of links is much smaller (link : blog ratio of about 2 : 1) which would suggest that fewer people discuss the posts themselves.

   What, then, defines “influence”? Is it people talking about you and your writings, or simply the number of readers (I’m not really setting myself up against The Girl, BTW).

   Techorati is global, so people like The Lone Voice and Drinking From Home have a large number of links from US blogs because they address a lot of US centric concerns (WoT, etc.).

   Gosh, this whole ranking thing’s difficult, eh?

   DK

   Oh, BTW, the phrase is “fool proof” not “full proof”.

   { Oct 25 }8:00 pm
2. 2

   Al Tepper

   Well done for a great post.

   Am thrilled to be in such good company and to be representing the green blogosphere and especially the UK green blogosphere.

   But let’s not read to much into the list as 90% of the blogs I value and read on a daily basis are not in the list.

   Long live the long tail!!!

   Namaste

   Al

   { Oct 25 }9:38 pm
3. 3

   Becky

   Ooh, I’m number 74! That’s a pleasant surprise.

   It’s nice to share a list with such luminaries, although I’m worried that I don’t deserve to be here.

   { Oct 25 }10:55 pm
4. 4

   Stephen

   DK: Hah! Sorry you’ve went down the list a little. I guess it’s because I received some help this time. I agree though - it is difficult to measure by links… or any other way for that matter!

   I like your notion of looking at links in relation to blog posts. Something that I’d never thought of. **sigh** it’s even more complicated now.

   Re: Full proof/fool proof. I’ve tended to use full proof to say something is definitive. Might be a northern thing?

   Al: Couldn’t agree more mate. It doesn’t matter if a blog has five readers or five million. It’s whether the blogger enjoys writing it and the reader(s) enjoy reading it. One man’s junk is another’s gold… or something like that.

   Becky: Whatever this list is worth, I’m sure you do deserve to be in it. BTW how come your gravatar still works? Mine stopped working a few weeks ago. This is or was the problem.

   { Oct 26 }7:33 am
5. 6

   Peter

   http://www.liberalreview.com/content/2006/10/liberal-review-in-the-uk-top-100

   Suitably bashfull ackowledgement of this great honour…

   { Oct 26 }12:29 pm
6. 7

   John Baker

   Well I’m absolutely flabberghasted. Number 75. What about all the big big big blogs like the newspapers and tv stations and supermarkets?

   { Oct 26 }4:46 pm
7. 8

   Stephen

   No mainstream media blogs I’m afraid Peter. It’s a collection of ordinary (for want of a better word) blogs only.

   I’m not sure if any UK TV stations or supermarkets have blogs… do they?

   { Oct 26 }4:52 pm
8. 11

   hecklerspray

   But… but… but… Our technorati rank has gone from 5,046 to 3,635 since you did it first. That makes hecklerspray 24th, not 33rd.

   Sounds petty, yes, but 24th place means that my Mum will only lock me in the cellar with the corpses of every pet I’ve ever owned for two hours a day, as opposed to the five hours she’s giving me at the moment.

   { Oct 27 }7:09 am
9. 12

   Manoj Ranaweera

   For some reason, Technorati no longer tracks my blog http://manojranaweera.wordpress.com - All my attempts to contact them have failed. It has tracked mine for 70 odd days.

   regards
   Manoj
   CEO - ebdex

   { Oct 27 }7:38 am
10. 13

    Stephen

    Hecklerspray: You’re right… it has. You must have received quite a few links since I began collecting the data.

    Sorry about the whole pet corpse thing. If only it could be done automatically.

    Manoj: That happened to me once but I kept emailing T/rati and eventually the problem was addressed.

    { Oct 27 }7:46 am
11. 14

    Simon Willison

    I’ve got a UK blog, ranked 2,488 when I checked just now.

    { Oct 27 }8:34 am
12. 15

    Alexs Travel Blog

    I swear my travel blog should have been there somewhere

    Alexs Travel Blog & Photos

    { Oct 27 }8:43 am
13. 16

    Stephen

    Simon: Added.

    Alex: Maybe in time?

    { Oct 27 }8:48 am
14. 19

    Andy Merrett

    Has someone developed an automated tool for checking TR rank? HDTVUK probably just missed it as it’s jumped up to 14239 today which would make us around 94 unless everyone else moved up.

    Great list though.

    { Oct 27 }12:13 pm
15. 20

    Stephen

    Hey Andy,

    Re T/rati tool. I don’t think so. I haven’t heard of one. Would be good if T/rati put this list in its own unique automated ranking system. That way it would be constantly updated.

    HDTV UK added mate.

    { Oct 27 }12:29 pm
16. 21

    Rich Boakes

    Hey, I squeezed into the #50, thats a nice Friday bonus :-).

    Anyone who’s interested in their rank might enjoy this: a while back I translated the blog valuation code into sterling, enabling British bloggers to get a feel of their contribution to Great Britain PLC. Crank up the Edward Elgar, strike your best Churchill pose and enter your URL to discover what your Great British Blog is worth.

    { Oct 27 }1:04 pm
17. 22

    Rich Boakes

    PS. Andy, it’s a good example of how to use the DuckSoup Library to interrogate the Technorati API which is what I think you’re after.

    { Oct 27 }1:28 pm
18. 23

    Stephen

    Rich, thanks. Added. Like the ‘What’s Your Great British Blog Worth’. Mine’s £53 grand. Any offers?

    Do you think it’s possible to do something with the T/rati API?

    { Oct 27 }1:35 pm
19. 24

    Ellee

    Hey, you missed me out, you don’t have many women listed. But I’m glad to see my allies Iain and Guido are way up there.

    { Oct 27 }8:23 pm
20. 25

    Rich Boakes

    Stephen, The T.API is a doddle to use, the real fun bit comes with working out who’s in (or from) the UK (IP geolocation is unreliable so it’s footwork) or… get in contact with Mark Sweeting of BritBlog and quiz him about technoranki.

    { Oct 27 }10:50 pm
21. 29

    Stephen

    Ellee: Afraid you don’t make the list. Check your ranking here.

    Re. Women bloggers. If you know of any that make the list please let me know.

    Rich: Thanks for the info. Could possibly do something with it (the list) in time.

    { Oct 29 }10:46 am
22. 30

    Flemming

    You solicited comments to your work. Here is mine.

    http://www.onalytica.com/blog/2006/10/edelman-influence-and-intelligent.html

    { Oct 29 }11:59 am
23. 32

    Stephen

    Flemming: Nice analysis. You’ve got me wrong though.

    You said: “Why do they call it “influence” when it’s clearly not?”

    My post (this post) says: “But how do you properly measure influence anyway?”

    You said: “Why don’t they just call it “popularity”? Then they would be totally right.”

    My post says: “I don’t know of any other method that can effectively measure authority, popularity… or whatever you want to call it.”

    I would still argue that inbound links result in influence to a degree. How much? I don’t know. Probably small… but the blogs in question could still be classed as ‘influential’. You can’t dismiss it (inbound links equalling influence) altogether.

    But as I’ve said before influence should be measured by a number of methods. How does your company do it?

    Cheers,

    { Oct 29 }6:24 pm
24. 33

    Flemming

    But Stephen,

    You’re presenting your analysis in a manner as if measurement of influence, popularity, centrality and other similar network metrics is a new science.

    It is not (that new). There is a lot of research in the area already, which you seem to skip/disregard.

    Measuring how elements of a network influence each other has been done since the 40s. It started with measuring how sectors of the economy influence each other (Leontief). In sociology, social network analysis has been developed since the 70s and at the same time academics started measuring the influence of academic journals (actually using the same principles of indirect influence as Leontief devised).

    My point is that when a researcher (you in this case) presents a new way of measuring/explaining something, that contradicts thousands of peer reviewed academic articles, hundreds of books and at least one Nobel Prize winner doesn’t he owe it to the discussion to at the very least explain why his method is better than the current consensus?

    I could ask the question the other way: Where in the academic literature do you find support for your methodology?

    { Oct 29 }7:52 pm
25. 34

    Stephen

    Flemming: As I said, you’ve got me wrong.

    “You’re presenting your analysis in a manner as if measurement of influence, popularity, centrality and other similar network metrics is a new science.”

    No I’m not. When have I said that this list is “new” or a “new science”. It’s barely an analysis.

    “It is not (that new). There is a lot of research in the area already, which you seem to skip/disregard.”

    Like I said, I don’t claim anything to be new. Which research have I skipped/disregarded? Research on the UK blogosphere?

    “My point is that when a researcher (you in this case) presents a new way of measuring/explaining something, that contradicts thousands of peer reviewed academic articles, hundreds of books and at least one Nobel Prize winner doesn’t he owe it to the discussion to at the very least explain why his method is better than the current consensus?”

    Oh please. Have I ever claimed anything but my intention to collect Technorati data on the UK blogosphere? Do I claim this method is better? No.

    “I could ask the question the other way: Where in the academic literature do you find support for your methodology?”

    This is the way Technorati collects data. I merely made a UK version. So it isn’t my methodology.

    Flemming, quite clearly you know something about this field of analysis. But to show your own intelligence you’re trying to make something out of nothing. This list (and that’s all it is) is merely a way to arouse some discussion around the UK blogosphere. Nothing else.

    Like I said in my comment above and the comment I left on your blog (which you haven’t approved for some reason) I’d be interested to know what your thoughts are on this particular kind of measurement. Seriously, I do because I’ll probably learn something from you.

    { Oct 30 }8:32 am
26. 35

    Flemming

    Ok, now I better understand where you’re coming from. In this light I can see I may have slightly misunderstood the background of the analysis and given undue focus to an issue that was not the focus of the analysis.

    Thanks for taking the time to clarify.

    { Oct 30 }9:12 am
27. 36

    mike

    I reckon I should be at #79 in your list.
    Rank: 11,974 (431 links from 198 blogs)

    You might also want to compare your 100 with the Technorati based list that I put together in May 2005 - which wasn’t totally reliable, as a Technorati glitch of the time weighted some of the political blogs in the list much too highly (one particular linking blog was being counted multiple times).

    http://www.troubled-diva.com/mostlinkedukblogs05.htm

    Interestingly, our respective definitions of what constitutes a UK weblog differ. You’ll see my definition at the end of the list. The major difference is that I excluded ex-pat blogs - whereas you have included some (Chase Me Ladies, Vitriolica Webb, Arseblog, Tim Worstall), but excluded others (a couple of the biggies being Petite Anglaise and My Boyfriend Is A Twat). I don’t think there’s a right or wromg answer - but decided it was better to exclude all ex-pats, rather than to include only a few.

    { Oct 30 }10:45 am
28. 37

    bengoldacre

    i’ve got a feeling http://www.badscience.net should be at about #45

    http://www.technorati.com/search/www.badscience.net

    { Oct 30 }12:43 pm
29. 38

    Antony Mayfield

    You’re doing a grand job - nice one. My Technorati rankings have been all over the place in the past few weeks so I’ve no clue where I should be. But it’s nice to be included on your list, chap - thanks… Even if they aren’t the answer to understanding the web, we’re hard-wired to love lists and the attention this one alone has got is proof of that…

    { Oct 30 }3:18 pm
30. 39

    Justin

    Thanks for persevering with this list Stephen – where do you find the time?

    Rich – I’m loving ‘what your Great British blog is worth’ – very neat!

    Keep up the good work.

    { Oct 30 }3:37 pm
31. 41

    Stephen

    Mike: Thanks, I’ve added your blog. Don’t know how I missed it this time.

    Bengoldacre: Thanks, added.

    Antony: Cheers mate. I’ve had a good response. You bet.

    Justin: I just don’t have a life.

    { Oct 30 }3:55 pm
32. 42

    JonnyB

    At the risk of blowing my ‘I hate these sort of lists’ cover and reavealing that I quite like them, what I’d do, if I had any form of programming or statistical knowledge would be…

    a) weight each linker according to its own number of incoming links (a la Google). Spam blogs, or links from blogs nobody else has discovered, don’t make somebody influential.

    then

    b) disregard all links that are directly reciprocal. So blogs with 20000 on their blogroll who get links back out of politeness and etiquette would be penalised. Besides, these people have no life and clearly cannot be thought of as influential.

    DK has a good point, above, I thought.

    { Oct 31 }1:35 pm
33. 44

    Andrew Ian Dodge

    Must try harder obviously. Interesting to know where we stand.

    { Oct 31 }7:09 pm
34. 45

    Alan

    The definition of what makes a UK blogger must depend on a lot of criteria. One of which has been mentioned in some of the comments - expat Brits. Do they warrant being included.?

    How about expats living in the UK?

    I’m a South African who lives here and started blogging here - does that make me a UK blog? I’d have thought so even though ‘British Bloggers’ won’t include me as a British blogger. Odd, really, when I’ve had British nationality longer than South African nationality.

    { Nov 03 }4:02 pm
35. 46

    Stephen

    Hi Alan,

    I’ve added you to the list (not this list but the Excel sheet I have) but you’re right - there should be certain criteria on determining a blog’s origin.

    Maybe that’s for the blogger to decide?

    { Nov 03 }4:27 pm
36. 47

    Andy K

    Hi there, I have a site which I think should be included in your Top 100 UK Blogs.

    http://www.denimology.co.uk

    It provides daily denim, news, reviews, interviews, photos and celebrity denim style tips.

    According to Technorati it has the following stats:

    Rank: 10,745 (1,134 links from 258 blogs)

    Cheers

    Andy

    { Nov 07 }10:49 am
37. 48

    Gordon

    Missed this as I’ve been away.

    But what an excellent list, particularly once you get into the low 80s… yes yes, I think you should freeze this list at this point.

    Hard though, innit. I know Mark at BritBlog has technoranki as a method of ‘ranking’ blogs that are members of BritBlogs but a lot of sites aren’t.

    { Nov 07 }3:49 pm
38. 51

    Matt Wardman

    I am doing some work in the same area, based on Iain Dale’s publication last autumn - be interesting to compare results.

    Rgds

    Matt

    { Mar 22 }12:40 pm
39. 52

    Matt Wardman

    I’m doing some work on Iain Dale’s published polical blog lists with Technorati and Google data at:

    http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2007/03/21/number-crunching-the-top-100-political-blogs-with-iain-dale/

    I am collecting data on his top 25-50 blogs in each category.

    Would you be able to refresg your data set for comparison?

    Matt

    PS: Your contact form seems temperamental. Not sure it came through.

    { Mar 22 }12:57 pm
40. 54

    kevin

    Our blog site is UK based, hmm!

    { Aug 25 }9:33 pm
41. 55

    Stephen

    Just checked, your blog’s ranked at over 97,000 by Technorati so it wouldn’t make the list and, besides, this list is waaaaaay out of date anyway.

    { Aug 25 }9:38 pm
42. 59

    ArtAdventure Travel

    I’m not in the list.

    I am however interested in the phenomenon where by being in one of these lists is self sustaining. The top blogs get more press and more viewing and remain in the top lists year after year. I just wonder if there is another way these lists can work - I have no answers - just a sore head from thinking about it.

    My other fear is the misuse of such lists, I will say no more, so as not to put ideas into empty heads.

    Reservations aside, I must admit I love to peruse such lists and see what all the fuss is about.

    Have Fun.

    { Jul 16 }4:52 pm

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This blog is written by me, Stephen Davies, and it focuses on public relations and social globalisation. In the day job I'm managing director of 3W PR ...
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