Power 150 Adds Alexa Metric

19 Responses to “Power 150 Adds Alexa Metric”

1. daddyfantastic » Power 150 Adds Alexa Metric on November 30th, 2007 8:50 am

   [...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt [IMG p150five.jpg] In response to your constructive feedback, the Power 150 ranking of marketing and media blogs is evolving yet again with the addition of an Alexa traffic metric. The Ad Age Power 150 team and I have been discussing and testing improvements for the last few months and this morning the Alexa addition was rolled out. Many have argued that Alexa constitutes a stronger measurement of popularity than Google, Technorati and Bloglines combined. Sure that can be debated, but five d [...]

2. Daniel on November 30th, 2007 11:56 am

   How much would comScore cost for this sort of thing? A lot, huh?

3. Kami Huyse on November 30th, 2007 2:35 pm

   The new formula killed me, but I applaud you tinkering with it to make it a little better.

4. Todd And on November 30th, 2007 3:04 pm

   Yep, I feel your pain. It killed me too, but it’s for the greater good.

5. Jeremy Pepper on November 30th, 2007 7:36 pm

   I don’t think Alexa does Blogger/Blogspot, though. Hmm, guess I got killed.

6. Becky Carroll on November 30th, 2007 8:18 pm

   I am unsure about this, as I feel Alexa has a bias towards technology blogs - and this is supposed to be a PR and marketing list. For the first time since the Top 150, I am not in the actual 150… oh well. I will have to trust you guys on this one, Todd!

7. toddand on November 30th, 2007 9:13 pm

   Jeremy and Becky, that’s good feedback. Can you expand and provide more support? Jeremy, are you sure Alexa doesn’t count blogger/blogspot? Becky, I’ve noticed a few technology marketing blogs dropped too. What points to the tech bias?

   Keep in mind, as with most things, this is something that inevitably can’t please everybody. No metric is perfect.

   Since launching, there have been a lot of Alexa suggestions along with many requests to downgrade or remove Bloglines. And those suggestions came with some good reason, which is why we felt it was important to respond with a change. Unfortunately, a perfect solution didn’t exist.

   Maybe we should open the comments up for suggestions to the perfect combo of measurements. Is there such a thing? What would it look like? All the while, we should keep in mind that a key benefit to the Power 150 is that it’s updated daily to reflect any change in subscribers, traffic, linkage, etc. That said, the reporting body (i.e., google, technorati, bloglines, alexa) MUST be willing to share its data computer-to-computer via an open API. Not all do, unfortunately. Google has an open API for Page Rank, but not for Reader.

8. Jennifer Mattern on December 1st, 2007 9:54 am

   This sounds like it’s a bandaid to a bigger problem of not being able to adequately measure blog popularity and/or influence, which is something a lot of companies are struggling with.

   While it’s nice to see some blogs recognized that I hadn’t noticed here before, it’s still extremely far from accurate.

   The problem with Alexa isn’t that there’s a “tech bias.” It’s that there’s a “webmaster bias” - the group most likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed as they often use it to check their own sites’ rankings. So if a blog has a heavy webmaster readership (Shoemoney and even Copyblogger for instance, which is cited all over webmaster communities), it’s going to rank higher than a blog targeting more traditional marketing and media folks.

   You’re also neglecting the fact that Alexa rankings are one of the most manipulated rankings in existence. I’m hoping that’s due to former ignorance on the subject and not a blatant disregard for it, as it’s been a known fact for quite some time. Then again, Technorati is being manipulated quite a bit with sold and traded favorites. You’re trying to make a judgment call on a blog’s importance, using factors that are either still subjective or based on things able to be manipulated fairly easily.

   Long story short, the Power150 won’t ever be a truly accurate representation of the top blogs in marketing and media. No blog ranking ever will be. We see list after list surface attempting to rank blogs using faulty metrics, and unfortunately manipulation is just the name of the game when it comes to the Web and webmasters / bloggers trying to increase rankings, visitors, and profits.

9. Alexa and the Power 150: What are They Thinking? : Naked PR on December 1st, 2007 10:03 am

   [...] Alexa rankings are now being factored into the Ad Age Power 150 rankings of marketing and media blogs. Let’s hear it for yet another goof in blog ranking metrics folks! I commented on Todd’s post directly, but wanted to share that comment here for you as well. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on the Power 150 or blog rankings in general. [...]

10. toddand on December 1st, 2007 7:39 pm

    I can appreciate your opinion on this, Jennifer, but I really don’t think we goofed at all.

    Just as a smart investor would diversify his/her portfolio to enhance returns and reduce risk, the Power 150 uses multiple metrics to help provide a more accurate return. We’re definitely not claiming it is perfect. The Power 150 is the aggregate score of rankings from Google, Technorati, Bloglines, Alexa and me. Sure, each individual metric can be questioned and its accuracy debated, but collectively they provide a more balanced perspective and ranking.

    Look at your local business journal (i.e., the Philadelphia Business Journal) that ranks area companies in specific sectors. The publication usually uses one metric and often that metric is revenue. Is revenue the best measurement of success? No. There are dozens of other financial indicators (net income, operating costs, ROI, asset performance) and strategic indicators (# of locations, # of employees, percent growth, market share) that may provide a much more accurate ranking. Combined, it would be even more accurate.

    Bottom line, we’re making the most of what the web gives us.

    And I couldn’t disagree with you more when you say “it’s another nice piece of link bait and not a whole lot more.” Wow, that was harsh. In my perspective and the perspective of MANY others (see some shared at the end of this post), it’s an extremely comprehensive directory and invaluable resource for those interested in discovering marketing blogs. And while no ranking is perfectly accurate, it does help differentiate. Plus, the scores for each metric are openly shared on the Power 150 so visitors can quickly compare blogs and determine which metric means the most to them before picking one to browse.

    Again, no metric is perfect, but I strongly believe the Power 150 is strengthened by the addition of Alexa and the further diversification of its metrics.

11. Valeria Maltoni on December 2nd, 2007 9:48 pm

    One wonderful measurement would be to use of this list as a reference — how many of the blogs has AdAge viewed? Have they referenced any yet? Would they read only the usual suspects or endeavor to find out about the topics each blogger tackles?

    To me any system is only as good as its use. Also, do they share data on number of visitors to the list?

    Thinking with you here, not at you

12. toddand on December 2nd, 2007 10:02 pm

    Hey Valeria - You’ll have to check with the crew at Ad Age for those specifics, but I imagine there is quite a lot of blog browsing.

13. Jenn Mattern on December 3rd, 2007 2:08 pm

    I certainly wouldn’t expect you to agree with most of my thoughts on the issue.

    But if you want to use “multiple metrics” as a supporting factor behind the Power150, you would need to be using far more than just a handful of subjective and easily-manipulated ones. It’s not as though you’re the only index doing this… I’ve yet to see a single one using more than a handful. Edelman proposed the most metrics that I’d seen, but even then, the idea was a complete joke with the faults in every single one of them.

    Even collectively these rankings don’t say a whole lot, as is evidenced by the changes that adding a single metric played in the rankings. If one metric can change the results significantly, then you don’t really have a collective judgement, do you? Just look at the better-ranked webmaster-oriented blogs the minute you implemented a metric biased in favor of that group. Again, the issue is that you’re using far too few metrics. I do understand that your options are limited because of your process, and that’s understandable. But it also means that it won’t ever really be an accurate representation. No ranking system will be, including the local example… I wouldn’t argue that they have a better system, nor would I say the inaccuracies of one index speak to the quality of another.

    I can give you credit for trying, and for creating something that does in fact have it’s own marketing value. Whether designed for that reason or not, I doubt you can really deny the linkbait aspect of the index… take a look at the backlinks to the main Power150 page alone. It’s linkbait no matter what the intention was, and there’s nothing wrong with that aspect from a marketing standpoint. What’s wrong is pretending it doesn’t exist, and ignorance not on your end, but that of visitors who don’t see the company / publication’s benefit in creating such a list. Again, nothing wrong with that benefit… I’m just pointing it out.

    You’re right in that the index serves as a good directory of marketing-related blogs. I can’t argue with that. If I thought it had no value whatsoever, I wouldn’t have submitted my own PR blog not too long ago. My issue with the Power150 (and more with blog rankings in general) is the ego-bolstering effect with the bigger bloggers, and the lack of exposure for often better-quality blogs that happen to be new (especially when basing on things like Google PR, which doesn’t update live and only does at their whim - recently leaving newer blogs with no rankings for over five months I believe). Frankly, I’m tired of seeing bloggers worry about popularity contests that are springing up left and right, especially in the marketing / PR arena, putting the focus on themselves and rankings rather than necessarily what their readers want. They don’t always go hand in hand.

14. toddand on December 8th, 2007 7:42 pm

    I hear you, Jenn. So, while our attempt at adding multiple metrics was in good faith, Alexa might not be the best answer. I’ve shared your blog post with the Ad Age team. Again, as background, the Ad Age folks and I were receiving complaints about Bloglines and suggestions for adding Alexa. We thought we were responding favorably to the community by reducing the Bloglines weight and adding Alexa. It seems like Alexa is not welcomed, so let me ask a couple questions…

    1) In your opinion, should Alexa even be a metric on the Power 150? If so, how would you weight it in proportion to Technorati, Google PR and Bloglines?

    2) Are there any other metrics that you recommend for ranking blogs that offer an open API?

    3) We know there is no such thing as a perfectly accurate ranking, but is there anything else you suggest to make the Power 150 stronger - keeping in mind that it is fully automated and requires third-party metrics to have open APIs?

    Thanks,
    Todd

15. Jeremy Pepper on December 12th, 2007 12:27 pm

    I think since the domain is blogspot.com, there is no accurate measurement for the subdomains that the blogs are located.

    At least, that’s been my experience in the past with Alexa.

16. Rejoining the AdAge 150 » The Buzz Bin on December 15th, 2007 1:48 am

    [...] ToddAnd and Charles Moran listened. AdAge added Alexa page rank and re-calibrated rankings to make a more complete picture. So we relisted.  The Buzz Bin was ranked at 230 before this change, and now we’re at 128. That’s a 100 points because of these changes. [...]

17. Advertising Age change la méthodo du classement des blogs Power 150 « internet et opinion - web 2.0, communication, relations publiques, influence, médias, blogs, etc. on January 8th, 2008 4:22 pm

    [...] Nous étions donc contents mais voilà-t-y-pas que nous sommes en 2008 et que Todd Andrlik et AdAge se sont entre-temps amusés à modifier la méthodo pour la complexifier. J’ai cherché des explications, mais celles que j’ai trouvée n’en sont pas vraiment (si ce n’est que Todd Andrlik utilise le feedback de ses lecteurs). [...]

18. WebUrs on February 25th, 2008 3:21 pm

    Todd And

    This is interesting indeed. Unfortunately, Alexa rankings tend to ignore traffic from surfers using corporate notebooks. Most of these do not have Alexa toolbars installed…. but students do.

    Read more about the problem here:

    http://commetrics.com/?p=45

    Comparing corporate blogs is difficult indeed. We have tried to address this in the above post.

    Thanks
    WebUrs

19. er99 on March 25th, 2008 7:55 am

    Be careful if you are using Alexa toolbar!!!

    I was using Alexa toolbar before, and the other day I found out that all pages that I visited, including the search queries that I made (which is included in URL), became part of archive.org database (they are affiliated with alexa) as well as Alexa.

    Surprisingly, the search queries that did not have actual “hit” is archived by Alexa and archive.org

    As one of them contained my name (watch out that Alexa privacy policy only says “we do not INTEND to” violate privacy), I asked Alexa to remove it, but for a week, I have not received any reply.

    If you care about these stuff, better not to use Alexa. The company has been suied before for privacy violation (and lost the case), and I don’t think their basis attitude to privacy has not changed.

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