The Death of Linkage
I first started blogging back in September of 2005. It’s hard to believe that to date, Notes from the Trail has 1273 posts and 4980 comments! It’s been an amazing adventure into relational creativity. Oh, the places we’ve gone! I’ve so enjoyed the discipline and challenge of regular writing. While some of my favorite blogs that I follow have disabled comments, I have chosen to keep them. Mainly because I love the feedback and occasional ego strokes.
However, over the past four years, one thing has changed. I rarely get linked anymore. From early on, I wrote about the necessity of linking for your blog’s health and networkability:
In the past year, I’ve noticed a drastic decline in the amount of blog linking. Perhaps it’s because many of the local bloggers that I used to read and run with have ceased blogging. Perhaps it’s because I follow many blogs in Bloglines and Google Reader and therefore rarely leave comments on those blogs. I just don’t know.
On the other hand, my blog readership has slowly, but steadily increased over the past four years. Of course, when you look at the blogging statistics, it’s mind-blogging boggling (stats as of January 2009):
133,000,000 – number of blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002
346,000,000 – number of people globally who read blogs (comScore March 2008)
900,000 – average number of blog posts in a 24 hour period
1,750,000 – number of RSS subscribers to TechCrunch, the most popular Technology blog (January 2009)
77% - percentage of active Internet users who read blogs
55% – percentage of the blogosphere that drinks more than 2 cups of coffee per day (source)
81 - number of languages represented in the blogosphere
59% – percentage of bloggers who have been blogging for at least 2 years
HT: TheFutureBuzz; Source
So here’s what I’d like you to do if you’ve stumbled by Notes from the Trail today…
- Please link this article on your own blog or tweet about it.
Also, I’d love your thoughts on the death of linkage. Is it just too much trouble to outlink these days? Has plagiarism increased, and thus attribution of sources is dying? Has the blog boom busted? Something else?
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About
Notes from the Trail
The Personal Blog of Jeff Noble
Info: From the misty hills of Virginia, "Notes from the Trail" seeks to encourage you on your journey. Written by a graphic designer-pastor, this blog is a blend of humor, insight, and faith discovery.
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[...] other news, a friend from college posted some crazy blog number stats yesterday. Â I feel like RainMan when anyone starts talking numbers above 500, but I do know those stats [...]
Perhaps it’s because you’re crazy?
I think a couple of things are related to the decrease in linking. First is probably that the early blogging boom has passed, and some of those folks that linked a lot have moved on. Second, some of those people that still blog have gotten fed up with auto-bot comments and having moderate a mess of stupidity in some of their comments.
Another thing that I see is, with more readers coming into blog-dom, you have more criticism. Not useful criticism, but criticism of “I read that blog you linked to, and while that article was good, did you know that blog linked to some freaky stuff or had some lame info on it” kind. Which, I think leads to being hesitant to link.
For example, I may link to one of your posts which is good, and then hear complaining from anti-iPhone people because of your iPhone posts. Well, I didn’t endorse the iPhone posts (nor do I disclaim them), but I just don’t want people complaining that I linked to an iPhone fanatic. Don’t have time for it.
That may seem ridiculous, but I think it’s part of it. The other part is that newer bloggers like me (although I have crossed 500 post mark!) see the medium differently. It’s more of a posted newsletter or open journal, rather than an interactive situation. I’ll take comments and interact with them, but I’m not really thinking along the line of interacting blog-to-blog with links.
Just a thought.
And I still have a link to you in my blogroll. Maybe that’s it as well? More automated blogrolling/linking, so less intentional linkage in posting? Kind of like other aspects of life. If we can automate it, we do, but then we began to ignore it?
Doug
.-= Doug´s last blog ..August 13 2009 =-.
Another great link I ran across today is called “Blogs are Back.” Check it out.
And Doug, you had some great observations… Thanks. I feel like your last one may be close to the attitude of many. It’s just a pain to link, and the sidebar linkage may make us lazy. I quit putting links on my sidebar simply because of your observation about not being able to control what you may be unintentionally promoting. (i.e., if one of the blogs you link to has a raging rant that you disagree with).
SPAM Comment just to build linkage :)
.-= Doug´s last blog ..August 17 2009 =-.
I’m a new blogger.
Well, a dreamer. And a writer.
Not too good with the technology that’s a part–big part–of blogging. But I am learning.
So, anyway, I really just wanted you to know that I’m visiting you because Whimzie linked to your blog in a recent post.
And because I drink more than two cups of coffee a day.
But it is decaf.
Sweet dreams.
.-= deb´s last blog ..Out of Control =-.