The Marketing Technology Blog

My blog was enlisted a while back in the Z-List. It was a fantastic list of little known bloggers that worked very hard at their craft and had a growing level of influence in the blogosphere and on the web. The list was republished on hundreds of blogs, influencing our rank on Technorati and on our Search Engine placement. At its peak, blogging A-lister Seth Godin even spent some time talking about it.

A new experiment started with a collage of 2000 bloggers… the faces of blogs from all over the world. I made that one, too! Both times I was on the list and didn’t request it. On the 2000 blogger experiment, I did volunteer, but it was actually after I was already put on it with no knowledge. I stopped short of posting the 2,000 on my site though… that’s a huge volume of images to display!

Now other bloggers are screaming foul at this. Sites are even yelling to boycott Technorati.

55,000,000 blogs in the world and somehow these 2000 blogs are ‘rocking the universe’. Give me a break. This is absolutely no different from sharing your blogroll, trading links with someone, giving away merchandise for mentioning your blog, linkbaiting, “Make me a Technorati Favorite” button, ‘optimizing’ for search engines, Digging, …. or even BUYING your Technorati rank by advertising on other sites. John Chow, for example, continues to utilize any and all methods to give his rank a boost.

Do I care? Absolutely NOT!

This is reality folks… nothing else. It pays to advertise, period. That said, advertising may gain you rank, influence, authority, and search engine placement… but it won’t keep them. In order maintain your rank, influence, authority, and search engine placement, you need to work on your content. Otherwise your site will become a revolving door of visitors and your ranking will go down the tubes.

In time, inflated ranks will deflate. In time, good blogs will rise to the top. There will always be folks flying up past you that don’t deserve it and people you’ll be flying past that really do. John Chow steps up the ladder rung and then provides his readers with quality content so that he stays there.

I remember a while back when Scoble mentioned how Social Bookmarking sites were ruining his blog traffic. Did he sit around and ask for a boycott of Digg? No! He launched a new initiative that is gaining momentum and exposing himself to an entirely new audience.

This isn’t Kindergarten, quit crying and get back in the game. Man up!

Here’s a list of blog posts about the list… I’m putting them in a nice list so that you can put them in your post if you decide to comment on the 2,000 bloggers list. Perhaps we can start the 2,000 talking about 2,000 List.

1. Zoli’s Blog
2. Web Strategist
3. Healthy Web Design
4. Loic Lemeur
5. Tino
6. Tony Hung
7. Instabloke

Ironically, these bloggers talking about the 2,000 bloggers experiment is now lifting their ranking in Technorati. Perhaps if we penalize everyone that’s on the list, we should also penalize everyone that blogs about the list, eh?!

Who are you to tell me I don’t deserve the ranking I have? I truly believe that the content and information that I bring my readers is of the utmost quality and deserves much more than many of the Top 100 Technorati blogs out there. It’s not for Technorati to decide. It’s not for you to decide. It’s for the folks who continue to come back and read my blog to decide. Those are the folks that I serve.