rank bullshit

I admit I like looking at my SiteMeter stats the way I like sniffing my own armpits (like Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda," I sniff my pits for reassurance), but deep down I know the stats business is a racket. The Daily Kimchi, which is quite a fine blog, recently posted a ranking of 47 Koreablogs based on a "blog juice" calculator. Uncomfortable images of male or female ejaculate aside, I took a look at that list and immediately knew it was bullshit, because (at least as of the date that Kimchi posted those results) the Lost Nomad falls under my blog. He's got a juice rating of 1.9 and my blog, just above his, is 2.4. That's absurd.

The Nomad is a fine writer, a fine fellow (I can say this now that I've met him), and-- most relevant to the topic at hand-- his blog gets approxiately 1.86499 times 10 to the hyperclitoris times more traffic than mine does. When you add up all the Nomad's plusses, there's simply no way that a fair ranking system would ever plop him right under my stank ass. I've been plodding along in relative obscurity since I began blogging in 2003 (July 4th is my blogiversary), and while I did zoom up from 20-some unique visits to 70-some and then to 150-some and then to my current 300 (+/- 10-20), I've been at roughly this level for at least two years. Unless I do something drastic, it's highly unlikely my blog will see more traffic than it currently does. And there's the rub: I'm not all that interested in doing more just for the hits. Don't get me wrong: I'm not against an increase in traffic, but I'm also not losing sleep over the fact that I'm not ranked up there with the likes of Instapundit.

There are so many ways to rank blogs that it's highly likely that any given ranking system is bullshit. Blog Juice-- whatever that is-- is simply wrong. The Nomad's face under my ass is proof of that.


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