In Other Words

Link stealing and watching

Somehow, somebody managed to add my sitemeter counter to their blog. The cheap bastards. Trying to coast of the fact that I have a few thousand hits and he has none. I've asked them kindly to alter or remove their counter, but so far it has had little result. I wouldn't really care about it, but for the fact that his hits are somehow being added onto my own.

Now that sucks, as I want my counter to show me how many people visit my site. Not my site and his. I can't really be bothered to care whether he needs to make himself look good by have his site counter show my hits, but I don't like it that the people that visit him influence my counter!

It's just plain rude! So if any of you have the time, leave rude comments on his blog, so that he'll change his mind and start using his own counter. Cheeky bugger.

For the rest I have little to report, so instead I'll explain how Technorati works, since all of yous seem to have trouble with it. Ok, Technorati tracks all the blogs on the Internet (well, almost all, or a good chunk) and what links they refer to. So, if you're interested to find out how many people have linked to a specific site, or address, then its just a simple matter of filling in that site or address.

How do you do that? Well, the easiest way is to load up the page you want to view in one window, then copy the full address (including the http part) and post it in that little white box that appears in the middle of the Technorati page.

Technorati will then look through its database, to discover if anybody has linked to that site. So how can you use technorati? Well, lets say you think you found something new and interesting on the Internet, but you're not sure how many other blogs have already mentioned it. Just type in the address of this new and interesting thing and bobs your uncle. The more links, the more blogs have discussed this phenomenon.

Or, you can keep track of how people (actively) like what you're writing on or about by how many people link to your blog. Nighty Knight of Tentacles, for instance, is linked to 74 times by 55 sources. While Liana Banana Super Hero Girl is linked to 9 times by 9 different sources. While I have to make do with 8 links for 8 sources (sniff). (Patricea has sixteen from sixteen.)

So does this measure your popularity? Partially, though I imagine it also has something to do with how many sites you personally link and how specific you write about something that interests a lot of people. The more actively you engage unknown outsiders, the more people look at your blog and the better the chances of expanding your linkage and therefore your readership.

Of course that only matters if you actually want to expand your readership, which was not what I started this post out explaining. I started out explaining technorati, and I think I did alright with that.

PS: Patricea, I'll get you a copy ASAP. Glad to see you're interested (oh, and I wrote for Expat magazine as well, I would just like to add. Seven months, every month.)

posted by Symbol @ 21.4.05