I have conducted a scientific study on TTLB, LinkFest Haven, Open Trackbacks, and SiteMeter. It’s scientific because I say it’s scientific, which makes it as scientific as any other ’study’ out there. Earlier this year Texas Fred conducted a discus…

I am not an old salt when it comes to blogging, actually just over a year now and had seen the TTLB on various sites and for a long time I had put off joining.

Finally after a year I decided to join it and went to the site and apparently wasted my time. And that’s what pisses me off more than anything. The guy that runs it is wasting a lot of folks time. To me that equals asshole.

I understand a lot undoubtedly goes into it including a lot of his time, their time, or how ever many operates and maintains it, but there are just so many blogs and people involved with that I gotta wonder what kind of person lets it go to shit like that??

It has got to be the former Marine in me because I have no use for disloyal asshats.

He had an obligation and from what I know about it he basically ignored just about everyone early on when the thing really went into the crapper.

I wasted my time, and now if it was to ever to get fixed to a satisfactory level I can’t even redo it, because I doubt he would take the time to erase my account and allow me to start over.

I tried that and it says my url is already registered. I can’t search it. I put the script on my blog and it’s freakin useless.

I gotta wonder if it’s burn out or ( female anatomy part ) whipped.

He’s what we might call a shit bird in the Corps. He’s earned the name shit bird of the blogosphere. Probably a flaming liberal…

And Debbie: your comments on sitemeter are bang on. Once I’ve found another “good reads” blog, yeh, I’ll likely read ‘em via RSS for the most part thereafter, because it’s just a great time saver. Sitremeter? I used it at one time because it was a TTLB requirement, back when I kinda thought the TTLB ecosystem was more useful than I view it today. I cut off its reporting more than a year ago, since it was–even then–less and less useful.

But as for the ranking issue… it’s just a game. NZ changes the weighting according to his own arcane preferences and POOF! 2,500 links disappear overnight! Big deal. It’s his game, his rules. And the ranking IS just a game. That dead “blogs” and sites that aren’t blogs at all are listed at all could be annoying, if the ranking game really mattered at all, but it doesn’t–to me at least. It’s a snicker.

As a result of reading this post, I checked my oen TTLB ranking. Funny. Really funny. That’s where I got the reference for 2,500 links disappearing overnight. Shows it right there! In one day, apparently about that many links just went POOF!

No they didn’t. NZ just applied a different weighting to links already there, because he decided some links are more equal than others. AND THAT’S JUST FINE, because it’s his baby.

It’d be nice if a service like TTLB or Technorati could offer real, in-depth information for free, but I take NZ Bear’s comment that he’s doing this on his own time while working at his RW job to support his family to heart (although, isn’t that what we all do on our blogs? ). Still, Fred’s got a solid point on the communication factor. Answering emails and trouble tickets is a MUST. Even an auto-response with an update or “you’re on hold” *heh* message is better than silence.

My takeaway? First, view the rankings as a game. Do NOT take them seriously. Second, cut the guy some slack when the ecosystem is wonky or he decides to change the rules in the middle of the game: he’s one guy doing his thing; and it IS his game, you know. Third, yeh, hold his feet to the fire on the communication issue. Just letting people hang, ignoring questions and even offers of help(!) is just not good practice. And some genuine transparency about the metrics would be a Very Good Thing, because it would be that rarest of birds: useful information.

Still, I suspect I’m in the vast unwashed host of bloggers who just blog to silence the voices in our heads. It won’t matter one bit to folks like me what our TTLB ranking is, as long as we can just get the noise in our heads to quiet down a bit…

Second, I did a little post on January 16, “Where is NZ Bear”,

“I’m worried about NZ Bear. Has he been bear-napped? Do we need to round up a ransom for his safe return? Is he injured?”

I commented that we had not heard from him in months and that the rankings were not updating. So that shows that this problem has been going on for at least 6 months. I have also had other bloggers email me asking what’s going on with TTLB, they could get no response from help tickets.

I hope NZ will come back here, Fred, and read the comments people have taken their time to submit. This isn’t some new or recent problem, it’s been going on for a long time. And what hope do we really have that it’s going to be any better in the future? We’ve been told TTLB was revamped, new and improved, on previous occasions and it wasn’t true.

While it is more worthwhile and rewarding for blog content to be acknowledged for its intrinsic value and quality of the author’s work, with an estimated 55 million blogs, your chances of being read without ranking and linking are about the same as hitting the lottery. It is then like the tree that falls on the deserted island, did it make any noise?

While all forms of promotion vary in legitimacy, short of spamming or violating established etiquette, if you want to know the value of your contribution, let enough people see it.

I have to stop now as I can get rather blabby.

BZ

I wonder how many bloggers are gonna tell me I’m wrong on that one??