Tracking the Blogosphere: Quarterly Update
We are #1!Today we offer our quarterly report on the state of the English-language Russia blogosphere in the form of the LR Blog Index for July 1, 2007 (the last index was published three months ago). The LR blog index has been expanded in scope and now consists of six factors (as compared to the previous three) and includes the top 20 blogs (as compared to the previous top 16). We publish it in draft form today so that we may be advised of any errors we have made and correct them, and we appreciate all such notices from bloggers and readers either by e-mail or a comment on this post. Of course, we would also love to know if we've overlooked a blog that has the credentials for inclusion, and it couldn't hurt to recommend a blog in the comments section even if it lacks credentials. There may be a genius laboring in obscurity! If so we must root her out!
Based on this analysis, La Russophobe is clearly the #1 English-language Russia politics blog in the world without qualification, with 115 total points compared to 106 for second-place Russia Blog. Robert Amsterdam is hot on the heels of Russia Blog in third place, poised to overtake those scum-sucking Russophile propagandists at any moment. Go get 'em, Robert! His blog has made amazing strides in a short period of time, showing that respect and support for his client Mikhail Khodorkovsky is deep and wide.
It's also worth noting that, unlike any other blog listed here, La Russophobe frequently diverts her content to Publius Pundit, and none of the activity generated there is considered in these rankings. Were it included, then it would be even more emphatically clear that LR is the number one blogging institution on the planet where Russia is concerned -- indeed, holding a dominant position in the marketplace of ideas. As we've said before, these achievements are are much those of you the reader, and especially our many contributors, as they are of the publisher and staff of the blog itself.
The six factors we used to rank and compare the English-language Russia blogs are:
B. Technorati linking blogs per month of existence
C. Total links from Technorati blogs
D. Technorati blog links per month of existence
E. Total Technorati favorites
F. Alexa Traffic
Each blog in the survey is ranked for each factor (the data and points score in each category follows each blog's name, with a hyperlink to the source), and then the six ranks are added to form a total score. Blogs are then ranked by total score to form the LR Index shown below, which is followed by the supporting data. We note with pleasure that it is just about time to say "goodbye" to one the blogs we formerly listed, Accidental Russophile (good riddance would be a more apt term for that loathsome and contemptible institution of lies and propaganda), moribund since November 2006 and now being passed on the stat list by newcomer Mark MacKinnon (best performer of the new additions) and old fogie Ruminations on Russia, which are now added to the list along with the Russophile garbage known as Krasnodar Today (spouted by a businessman trying to curry favor with the Putin clan). Another disgusting Russophile screed, Russian Blog, is also long-term moribund and fading fast into obscurity, more good news as far as we are concerned. Conversely, we are delighted to welcome relative newcomer Darkness at Noon, which has jumped onto 11th place on the Technorati links list, leapfrogging old timers like White Sun of the Desert and Lex Libertas (due in no small part to being promoted here on La Russophobe).
LR Blog Index for July 1, 2007
#1 -- La Russophobe 115 (19+18+20+20+20+18)
#2 -- Russia Blog 106 (20+15+18+16+17+20)
#3 -- Robert Amsterdam 103 (18+20+12+18+19+16)
*
#4 -- Sean's Russia Blog 93 (15+13+19+19+16+11)
#5 -- Edward Lucas 92 (16+14+17+15+16+14)
*
#6 -- Siberian Light 84 (17+9+16+8+16+19)
#7 -- Russian Spy 81 (12+16+10+17+9+17)
*
#8 -- Very Russian Tochka 72 (14+17+5+12+9+15)
#9 -- Vilhelm Konnander 70 (13+11+14+14+18+0)
*
#10 -- White Sun of the Desert 60 (9+8+11+10+9+13)
#10 -- Copydude 60 (7+10+8+13+12+10)
*
#12 -- Mark MacKinnon 55 (3+17+3+13+9+10)
#13 -- Russian Blog 53 (6+4+15+11+17+0)
*
#14 -- Scraps of Moscow 43 (11+6+9+5+12+0)
#14 -- Darkness at Noon 43 (10+19+2+7+5+0)
#16 -- Accidental Russophile 40 (3+5+7+9+16+0)
*
#17 -- Lex Libertas 37 (8+3+6+3+5+12)
#18 -- A Step at a Time 31 (5+2+13+6+5+0)
*
#19 -- Ruminations on Russia 19 (4+1+4+1+9+0)
#20 -- Krasnodar Today 13 (1+9+1+2+0+0)
________________________________________________
SUPPORTING STATISTICS
A: Top 20
Russia Blog 152 (20)
La Russophobe 136 (19)
Robert Amsterdam 134 (18)
Siberian Light 118 (17)
Edward Lucas 117 (16)
Sean’s Russia Blog 92 (15)
Very Russian Tochka 69 (14)
Vilhelm Konnander 66 (13)
Russian Spy 66 (12)
Scraps of Moscow 66 (11)
Darkness at Noon 61 (10)
White Sun of the Desert 55 (9)
Lex Libertas 54 (8)
Copydude 53 (7)
Russian Blog 44 (6)
A Step at a Time 38 (5)
Ruminations on Russia 34 (4)
Mark MacKinnon 31 (3)
Accidental Russophile 30 (2)
Krasnodar Today 30 (1)
NOTE: The above index above shows the level of interest expressed by the blogosphere as a whole in the individual listed blogs. This measure isn't really fair to younger blogs, but it gives credit where credit is due for longevity. It is offset by measure B, which factors in age. Ties are broken by referring to the total number of links from its linking blogs that each blog has received.B: Top 20
Technorati Links Factored by Age
Robert Amsterdam 13.4 (134/10) (20)
Darkness at Noon 12.2 (61/5) (19)
La Russophobe 9.0 (136/15) (18)
Mark MacKinnon 7.8 (31/4) (17)
Very Russian Tochka 6.9 (69/10) (16)
Russian Spy 7.3 (66/9) (15)
Russia Blog 5.6 (152/27) (14)
Edward Lucas 4.9 (117/24) (13)
Sean’s Russia Blog 4.4 (92/21) (12)
Vilhelm Konnander 3.9 (66/17) (11)
Copydude 3.8 (53/14) (10)
Siberian Light 2.74 (118/43) (9)
Krasnodar Today 2.72 (30/11) (8)
White Sun of the Desert 2.5 (55/22) (7)
Scraps of Moscow 2.0 (66/33) (6)
Accidental Russophile 1.6 (30/19) (5)
Russian Blog 1.5 (44/30) (4)
Lex Libertas 1.1 (54/49) (3)
A Step at a Time 1.0 (38/37) (2)
Ruminations on Russia 0.6 (34/52) (1)
NOTE: The index above shows the level of interest expressed by the blogosphere in the individual blogs factored by age, expressed as links from blogs per month of existence, meaning that it is a fair comparison of older to newer blogs.
C: Top 20
by Total Links from Technorati Blogs
La Russophobe 1,914 (20)
Sean’s Russia Blog 956 (19)
Russia Blog 953 (18)
Edward Lucas 801 (17)
Siberian Light 605 (16)
Russian Blog 499 (15)
Vilhelm Konnander 469 (14)
A Step at a Time 446 (13)
Robert Amsterdam 448 (12)
White Sun of the Desert 397 (11)
Russian Spy 386 (10)
Scraps of Moscow 368 (9)
Copydude 332 (8)
Accidental Russophile 283 (7)
Lex Libertas 264 (6)
Very Russian Tochka 195 (5)
Ruminations on Russia 150 (4)
Mark MacKinnon 99 (3)
Darkness at Noon 61 (2)
Krasnodar Today 53 (1)
NOTE: The index above shows the level of interest expressed by the universe of blogs that link to a given blog in that blog, i.e., how often they refer to it (it could generally be described as customer loyalty). It is unfair to younger blogs in the same way that the linking blog count is, and is counterbalanced in the same way.
D: Top 20
Total Links from Technorati Blogs factored by Age
La Russophobe 127 (1,914/15) (20)
Sean’s Russia Blog 46 (956/21) (19)
Robert Amsterdam 45 (448/10) (18)
Russian Spy 44 (386/9) (17)
Russia Blog 35 (953/27) (16)
Edward Lucas 33 (801/24) (15)
Vilhelm Konnander 28 (469/17) (14)
Mark MacKinnon 25 (99/4) (13)
Copydude 24 (332/14) (12)
Very Russian Tochka 20 (195/10) (11)
Russian Blog 18.4 (499/27) (10)
White Sun of the Desert 18.04 (397/22) (9)
Accidental Russophile 15 (283/19) (8)
Siberian Light 14 (605/43) (7)
Darkness at Noon 12.2 (61/5) (6)
A Step at a Time 12.0 (446/37) (5)
Scraps of Moscow 11 (368/33) (4)
Lex Libertas 5.3 (264/49) (3)
Krasnodar Today 4.8 (53/11) (2)
Ruminations on Russia 3 (150/52) (1)
E: Top 20
Number of Technorati Favorites
Robert Amsterdam 9 (19)
Vilhelm Konnander 7 (18)
Russian Blog 5 (17)
Edward Lucas 4 (16)
Siberian Light 4 (16)
Sean’s Russia Blog 4 (16)
Accidental Russophile 4 (16)
Russia Blog 3 (12)
Very Russian Tochka 2 (9)
Lex Libertas 1 (5)
A Step at a Time 1 (5)
Darkness at Noon 1 (5)
Krasnodar Today 0 (0)
F: Top 12*
Russia Blog 390,548* (20)
Siberian Light 627,396 (19)
La Russophobe 686,228 (18)
Russian Spy 729,280 (17)
Robert Amsterdam 1,274,735 (16)
Very Russian Tochka 2,415,893 (15)
Edward Lucas 2,476,947 (14)
White Sun of the Desert 2,748,736 (13)
Lex Libertas 3,130,585 (12)
Sean’s Russia Blog 4,300,307 (11)
Mark MacKinnon 5,724,648 (10)
Copydude 7,073,568 (9)
*La Russophobe continues to question the legitimacy of Russia Blog's traffic, which is utterly inconsistent with its number of Technorati linking blogs and the amount of comments its receives. We believe there is every possiblity that Russia Blog is using spam technology to artificially inflate its traffic in the same way that English Russia does, and Russia Blog has done nothing to dispel this appearance.
5 comments:
Two thoughts:
First, on methodology: I think you place too much emphasis on one source of date - technorati. You might want to check out this approach instead:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/top-25-blogs-about-blogging/
Second, on Russia Blog's traffic: I suspect their high level of traffic is due to their being a source for Google News. When one of my posts made it there, via a reprint Russia Journal, it brought in significant amounts of traffic. Replicate that on a daily basis, and...
ANDY:
Thanks for the comments!
About Russia Blog, it sort of begs the question, doesn't it? The question would be how they managed to become a "source of news" when in fact they are not. And SPAM technology would be one way of doing that. But we don't think this accounts for it, because they are not on Google News regularly or prominently enough to account for the sustained traffic flow that Alexa documents.
About Technorati, we are using half of the sources your links mention. We could use Google and Bloglines too, but unless you have data that shows Google + Bloglines would produce a significantly different ranking than Technorati + Alexa, there is not really much point. True, this index is heavily weighted to Technorati, but Technorati is without question the leading source of this information and dedicated to dealing with evaluation of the blogosphere.
P.S.: That being said, if you (or anybody else) wants to gather and tabulate Google and Bloglines data for all 20 blogs, including links to the data pool for each, we'll be happy to include it in the survey if it changes the results.
About the traffic.
La Russophobe is cheating as always. She got the blog programmed so, that the page expires in short while.
The time is just enough to post one short comment, and than, when I try to go back to the main page, it has been "expired".
So I have to reconnect, and this gives more visits to the LR statistics. Sometimes I open the page 6-7 times during my evening leasure with the computer.
So I claim 25% of the visits to be of mine.
RUSSIAN:
You are a paranoid maniac, classic Russophile fool. Ask anyone who owns a blogger account, or make one yourself: there is no way to "program" it as you suggest. Even if there were, the counter excludes incidents of that kind, that's its job. And even if there were a problem, it would be the same for all blogs.
What's more, we have the same number of Technorati linking blogs as Russia Blog and the same number of comments, yet their traffic is much higher. So if we are "cheating" then they are cheating twice as much as we are -- but you don't criticize them because you agree with them. That shows you are a person of very low character.
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