pfeh

[click recent image of 99 preparing to kick the bumper of a Technorati executive]

The splendid, and endlessly patient Homie-banoo couldn't resist... pfeh! I probably don't know a tenth of the blog rating gigs out there, but I have been forced by circumstance to pay attention to Technorati, and this stuff is stone useless. In fact, I have tested, and am testing a number of blog stats and/or rating services and have yet to find one that doesn't totally suck. This would be a matter of no interest to me whatsoever, but I think people get paid on this basis, and that really upsets me. Plus, even if something else, something unknown to me at this time, actually keeps actual stats for the purpose of paying people to advertise your stuff on their blogs, there are thousands upon thousands of bloggers who sweat bullets over this stuff. That is so silly I cannot begin to broach the subject, but it's mean to taunt them this way. The one service I have tested eighteen ways to Sunday is Technorati and I can state with authority they miss at least half of the people who link your site. Sometimes this will be because they have their feed set to only give part of each post instead of the full post, but by no means always. Sometimes this will be because they have their software set not to ping, or allow pings. Once in a while it's because someone screwed up the link. But there are other times, and lots of them, when there is just no discernible reason whatsoever.

Because there are people to whom this stuff matters like crazy, I have a full feed and try to remember to link or keep linking people and blogs and sites that I like so that whatever authority that link gave them doesn't expire. Even though it's silly and the wrong thing to get caught up in if you wish to be a part of a better world.

For those of you newbies freaking out over the appalling drop in your stats right now: It's August. The slowest month of the year for blog traffic. People are out in the world while the weather doesn't impede them. They're on vacation. They're working in their yards. They're watching the Olympics. They're nearly dead of all the horrifically bad world news coming on top of the heat and/or outrageously weird weather. They're traveling. They're carbo-loading for the height of the campaign insanity in the run-up to November. They don't give a fuck about your blog, and are completely uninspired to pipe up on it.

Of course, you blog because you want to reach people, but you cannot want to reach people more than you want to direct your good intent, put it on the table, make it visible.... The deep significance of this may be too recondite for the modern human, certainly for most modern Americans. You can't kick ass until you are not kicking ass! You do not thrust your thrust; you merely aim it, direct it, without ever thrusting it. Then you have gone from merely knocking ass to kicking it into next week.

Like this.