Thursday, February 07, 2008

IZEARank vs PageRank

Why do we have to put ranking on everything? When I started this blog, I did not even know that a ranking system existed in the blogosphere and in the worldwide web. Just like when I started schooling at age 5, I did not aim to be the first honor. I just attended classes regularly, studied my lessons and did my assignments. I even skipped the awarding of my first ever scholastic medal.

But whether we like it or not, some authorities would like to rank those under their wings. They got valedictorians, salutatorians, summa cum laude, magna cum laude, top 10%, top 100s, etc…. Some companies even rank their associates (and managers) as they compete among their peers. The high flyers get the promotions, scholarships and recognitions. Meaning those on top has more opportunities. Those who rank low get booted out either by the boss or by their own volition, wounding their esteem in the process.

That is also true in worldwide web and those millions of blogs out there. So, who’s the foremost authority to give out the rankings? If for search engines, in my opinion, it should be Google PageRank (PR), unless Yahoo! can come up with its own challenge. Given similar keywords, the higher ranked sites appear on top of the lower ranked sites. When you create the ranking system, it should only be logical that those who want to enjoy it should abide by your rules. Google did just that by penalizing those buying and selling links to get high rankings. Or maybe if we believe the mathematics that the inward link counts as a point and outbound links is parting with that point, then, when one gives out too much of the link without getting something in return, his PR would most likely decrease. This would mean that there is a possibility that my site will soon lose its PR4 if it continues to give out those links. I hope this would not be the case. I prefer the addition rather than the deduction.

If it is for web advertising, who can give credible rankings to the publishing blogs? It is only reasonable that the one who gets hold of the advertisers and the publishers should rank the blogs accepting paid posts. This is where IZEARank comes in. The ranking is basically based on the number of page views and unique visitors of a site, as compared to the other blogs under IZEA’s fold. If their system is accurate, then it is good news to advertisers seeking more exposure rather than buying links. If I were the advertiser, I would pay for exposure from those high traffic blogs. This is bad news for the low traffic posties though. They will not get the best part of the pie, or perhaps get nothing at all from IZEA advertisers.

I currently have a weekly average rank of 1,732 which means that if there are 2,000 blogs in their rank, I’m near bottom and might be useless to advertisers. (I hope they have a million so that my site would be considered higher-ranked). But I think they will not boot out the low traffic posties. Perhaps they’d change their admission rules and consider site traffic rather than blog age and searchability.

So, what are we bloggers going to do about this? Some blog just to let out steam. Others do it for the love of writing. So they won’t need either ranks. There are those who write for the monetary opportunities in the internet world. They are the ones needing both the PR and the IZEARank (if they publish for IZEA). If you rank low in both and want to join the band of monetization, don’t fret. Continue to write quality posts that internet readers seek. Along with it, expose your site by hopping on blogs, leaving sensible comments, exchanging links, and submitting your sites in some bookmarking sites and social networks. The precious ranks that you seek will just be handed in to you.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lazarus,

I think we both started the same way and our orientation about blogging is not too different. But maybe "commercialized" blogging is a trend among any bloggers... I said many becoz not all of us blog for money. These ranks are artificial measure of a blog's worth. It's a mathematical truth. No one can really tell the worth of a blog by any means except perhaps the learning that our readers can derive from our write-ups.

Panaderos said...

lazarus,

I would have to agree with Jessie. Not all people blog for money. Some do it for the love of writing and some use it as an outlet to share views and information with others. The number of links to a blog do provide a quantifiable measure of its audience. However, it does not provide an accurate or reliable measure of the quality of its content. It is up to a blog's readers to decide what for them constitutes "quality content".

Anonymous said...

jessie, i consider myself late in this problogging thing (or a reluctant problogger). As you can see, I started only in late October, days after the rankslap, though this site is almost 2 years old. It's just a little experiment. But I will not really veer away from the purpose of the blog.

Anonymous said...

panaderos, i agree. It's for the love of writing. It just happened that someone would like to sponsor some entries. And it's not bad either.

ghee said...

i didnt care about PR before,i just realized it when i started to post paid ads.and the izea ranking,hindi ako interesadong ilagay sa blogs ko :)

enjoy your friday!!

ghee

Lazarus said...

ghee, you must be scared na dahil dun sa nangyari sa ppp. Maybe the advertisers still prefer the PR.