As bloggers, we can often get caught up in our stats. Pursuing better Google Page Rank, Technorati ranking, Alexa Rank, etc. can consume us, and when we achieve higher and higher numbers we may feel as if those numbers are a real indication of our place in the blogosphere. As it turns out, that’s not true. What those stats are unable to measure is what’s really important- influence.
There could not be a better example of this than the recently published “Top 100 Female Bloggers” list published at Enkay Blog recently. Randa Clay Design came in at #10, which is very nice and I’m always honored to be named among any list of this nature. However, if you take a look at the list, you’ll see that #11 is Liz Strauss. The idea that I would rank higher than Liz, and some of the other women in this list of top bloggers is just silly, and goes to show that while achieving high stats is great, they do not tell the whole story. Spend more time building your blog into an influential site- the numbers will follow and they’re not that important anyway.
57 Responses to “Numbers don’t mean everything”
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July 13, 2008 10:18 pm
Randa,
I agree that the numbers move us all about the place. They compare differences in blogs not relationships. A boss once told me “do your best work and the recognition will follow.” Great work gets noticed. Google takes away links.
But to think that you might have more influence didn’t for a second strike me as off or “silly.” You’re respected designer, a great thinker and writer, and I’m a fan for a long time now. So on that detail we don’t agree.
Liz
July 13, 2008 10:27 pm
Hi Randa,
Thank you for mentioning the list. I do agree that numbers are in the end, well, just numbers and they dont have any value to them. Its just a basis for being able to create the list that I have created. The main idea of the list is basically in the end to compile a large network of female bloggers that are centrally linked through the list and to help bring notice to new and upcoming female bloggers that many have not as yet heard about considering several of them in “Honorable Mentions” are just a week or so old and my hope is to help motivate them to continue blogging. once again, thank you for posting about it!
- Enkay
July 14, 2008 12:03 am
So true. Very clear comments there. I seem to get wrapped up in my stats quite often. Great list there too, and you shouldn’t put yourself down. I like your blog a lot.
July 14, 2008 8:42 am
@Liz - thanks stopping by and for your kind comment.
@Enkay - I think numbers have some value, as they can drive how much someone will pay for an ad!
And, they can be an indicator of general performance. But, in the end, they can’t tell the whole story. That was my main point.
@Dan - thanks very much. I wasn’t putting myself down at all, just looking at things realistically. I know that part of the reason I have a high page rank is because I’ve released several WP themes. While it’s great that many people use them and keep the link in the footer, in the end, a link to something I’ve written means a little more to me.
July 14, 2008 8:42 am
Randa, I am a fan of your blog and my respect for you increased as you took a position of humility rather than boasting your ratings.
I can see that Enkay did the ranking based on only 3 factors viz. Google PR, Alexa and Technorati. We all know how flawed is Alexa as it favors only webmaster or SEO related sites. Google PR can be a good indication of popularity, but in these days links can be bought and the ‘popularity’ could be purchased too! The blogger’s impact on the society is a subjective metric and it could be measured to some extent by polls, however, that too becomes influenced by the nationality of people who answer the polls. So I guess the best policy is not to worry about such rankings and blog about what our heart says.
July 14, 2008 11:11 am
[...] - I just thought I’d say. Checkout ‘Numbers Don’t Mean Everything‘ on the Randa Clay Design [...]
July 14, 2008 11:18 am
Randa,
I hear where you’re coming from. And here’s a credit to you (link or no link, doesn’t matter to me) danfreakley.co.uk/blog/numbers-dont-mean-anything/
Thanks for pointing it out to me, and others.
July 14, 2008 11:21 am
i think numbers are important until you have enough reputation and visitors to not carry about them anymore
I hope that i’ll reach this some day 
July 14, 2008 11:29 am
I can understand your wanting to be modest, but I wouldn’t underestimate your own influence. I originally came across your blog looking for SEM related articles but came back because I liked the education in design it offers. Not many SEM bloggers have a site that looks as good as yours. Keep up the good work.
July 14, 2008 6:57 pm
To be honest I don’t care much numbers. As long as there is someone listening to my blabbing I am happy.
July 15, 2008 5:38 am
It is absolutely true that Google can take away the rankings any day and so the rankings based on Google PR, Technorati do not have much meaning. What matters is your loyal readers. They would follow you even if your site disappears from Google. This is very much true these days as many people check blogs not by visiting the sites, but from feedreaders. I too feel that we should spend more energy in building loyal blog readers than worrying about the rankings.
July 15, 2008 5:08 pm
I don’t care about numbers on my counters, first of all - blog is for me, and for people. Not for numbers or SE.
July 15, 2008 9:57 pm
I love your site…and your humbleness!
July 15, 2008 10:16 pm
You are right. When I first started blogging, I was so happy to even see 1-3 people who came to my blog to read my posts.
Now I’m checking my analytics everyday to find out how many people were visiting me yesterday and sometimes got a bit grumpy if I see the numbers declining
But I guess for small blogs, having the numbers are quite important, because they haven’t got many loyal readers yet
July 16, 2008 4:05 am
Your post shows your modesty. But there are bloggers in the Internet Marketing field who would post their statistics including traffic and money they make every month. I guess it works for them; it satisfies their egos and also to get more new gullible viewers to their site every month.
July 16, 2008 5:17 am
I’ve been in the blogosphere for only a year now and have learned a lot. You’re right about the numbers thing. For instance John Chow is ranked higher than Courtney Tuttle, but to tell you the truth I think Courtney gives better, more accurate information without the big head. For that I think Courtney should have the higher ranking. It’s just there’s no way to measure success.
For example I could have a blog with 2500 rss subscribers that don’t read any of my content and you could have a blog with 25 readers all of whom comment and read… I’d think yours would be more valuable!
July 16, 2008 9:17 am
I think that bloggers should not disclose the amount of RSS feeds they have. I mean, what’s the point? People aren’t interested in the popularity contest, they want content that interest them. The number of RSS feeds is irrelevant and showing off is dumb.
July 16, 2008 11:18 am
The number of RSS feeds might let others wonder why the site have many subscribers. When they starts to think, they will look at the site what’s interesting and go through the pages. Do you know why? Human nature is selfish, they want it for themselves. They will do exactly how the site performs or doing. Copycat, nuisance but not illegal. Don’t you wonder why they able to get so much RSS feeds while you don’t have it?
July 16, 2008 12:49 pm
I agree!
Good numbers for you…
July 17, 2008 4:02 am
Absolutely true indeed! I have seen websites whose page ranks are 6-7 with a lot of listings in governement blogs, technorati and other significant aspects yet their positions are nowhere when it comes to google.
July 17, 2008 9:51 am
The number of RSS subscribers is certainly not the best measure of popularity, I’d rather take into account the number of comments, how actively discussions are led and so forth. Pagerank shouldn’t count at all.
July 18, 2008 3:10 am
Randa, I don’t know; maybe you are selling yourself a bit short. Although some of those other blogs are great (Liz’s for example) yours offers a different type of quality, including a different type of voice.
Although stats don’t always tell the whole story, you are being a bit too humble
July 18, 2008 9:03 am
I have always felt that the numbers are important. But now that I see you at the top ten and over Liz Strauss, the comment is clear. Don’t worry about the numbers, just blob. You have such a clean cut site, I love it.
July 19, 2008 10:22 am
Hmm this is a difficult one. I’d rank blogs in how much profit they mke the owner. But that’s the only reason I blog.
July 19, 2008 7:33 pm
I completely agree with what you are saying. Real life and the life-long struggle for popularity is the same way. I know when I was in school I wasn’t popular at all, but I sure changed a lot of people’s thoughts and views on life if they had ever shared their time with me. The depth of a blog and how much influence it has really out weighs anything.
July 21, 2008 9:24 pm
Yeah, PR and others don’t really mean much. I feel it’s more about your content than the PR stuff. What’s the point of gaining the whole yet you forsake yourself, right? Anyway, congrats to you!
July 22, 2008 1:46 am
I think women get easily popularity in blogsphere
btw blogher.com is best community for female blogger.
July 23, 2008 3:21 am
First of all, well done on your Top 10! I’ve only recently started blogging and I’m really enjoying it - in my case focusing on web design, email marketing and other matters such as SEO. Oh yes and a recent post about computer socks. Keep up your ‘influential’ work - you’re setting a great example to noobs like me.
July 23, 2008 5:33 am
If you’re ranking high enough, numbers are losing importance.
July 23, 2008 10:29 am
in economy some say the passive income is the most valuable one… if you’re blogging in a competent, influential, charismatic way, you’ll get a ‘backlinks’ passive income, from people who’ll adore what you’re doing
July 23, 2008 3:01 pm
I hear you. To me loving what you blog about is more important than numbers. Its fantastic to be influential. I hope that I could get this right in the near future. Congrats on your top 10. I think you have a fabulous blog and a lot of adoring readers! Well done.
July 24, 2008 5:46 am
Interesting article…although I can’t say that stats don’t mean anything but I do see where you are coming from and it’s a good reminder not to get carried away with it.
In terms of top influential bloggers, really it’s up to the maker to decide isn’t it? If it’s by vote then I would say it’s got a lot more weight to it. Just my two cents.
July 24, 2008 7:41 am
Nice post. I didn´t know about that list. It is great to see so many beautiful and useful blogs made by women.
July 24, 2008 3:24 pm
numbers definitely don’t mean everything! Good posts will be followed by good numbers!
July 25, 2008 3:00 am
Indeed, great work gets noticed. However, getting noticed is not necesserily mean getting recognition. If someone want to contribute with all she has, she has to give more weight to the number of good deeds (read:good posts) rather than the number of people saying thank you or any form of appreciation. It’s kinda hard to measure impact. But rest assure, there’s always be someone or many one who are enlightened.
Randa, with your reputation, even a trivial and typical saying -as long as it came from you- would give a tromendous impact.
July 25, 2008 6:08 am
that’s true! i don’t care how many visit my blog. knowing that i’ve helped someone through it makes me happy.
July 25, 2008 12:05 pm
I couldn’t agree more. Numbers what’s that?
July 25, 2008 7:37 pm
I agree - I always get asked about my subscriber base and my daily visitors when people come by and I tell them, but they’re just one of the many things that make up a site…
July 28, 2008 3:06 am
I love your site Randa.
I agree with you, the quality is more important than quantity.
I’ll emphasizing in useful content in my blog and interesting of any reader in my blog.
Thank for sharing this idea.
July 28, 2008 6:49 am
May be numbers don’t mean everything but most of the time and most of the people depends on the numbers. They even measure depending on numbers.
July 30, 2008 11:56 am
All too true. It’s easily forgotten that influence over a few, dedicated readers always trumps people stumbling your blog in great numbers but never actually coming back.
July 30, 2008 4:33 pm
I think your post´s tiltle is wrong. Indeed having good numbers in stats, page rank, etc not necessary means succeeding over the net. But those numbers surely help many bloggers (and many webmasters in general, cause static and business sites count too) to increase traffic and confidence in readers/customers and/or other blogs/sites. The point is not getting obsessed with them cause as you said…. they are not all…. but somethig, yes.
July 30, 2008 8:57 pm
Well said and I am glad to see others feel the same as I do. Recently I was participating in a conversation on one of the listservs I am on. As happens from time to time, a thread on blogging and websites is created and people engage in that conversation. And as usually happens, talk of stats, numbers, outbound and inbound linking becomes the focus of the thread.
I agree that the influence is important and right along with that is the conversation and relationships one builds by blogging. Instead of being so focused on the numbers, bloggers should also be more concerned with turning visitors into readers. And more important, return readers. It are these readers that we build a relationship with.
August 1, 2008 10:22 am
Congrats on the Top 100 list and you are correct numbers do not mean everything.
Lately Google has taken a liking to hating moremerchant.com Oh well advertisers and readers are still happy with what I provide.
August 2, 2008 7:50 am
I think your post´s tiltle is wrong. Indeed having good numbers in stats, page rank, etc not necessary means succeeding over the net. But those numbers surely help many bloggers (and many webmasters in general, cause static and business sites count too) to increase traffic and confidence in readers/customers and/or other blogs/sites. The point is not getting obsessed with them cause as you said…. they are not all…. but somethig, yes.
August 4, 2008 6:45 am
I don’t agree with you, numbers mean everything on the web. Without good rankings (number) you don’t get any visitors (number) which means that you don’t get any income (number)…
August 4, 2008 9:12 pm
Great post. I too can get caught up in the numbers, but the numbers I am focused on are the bottom line results. Is what I am putting out there getting me the results I aimed for? I would much rather have 100 quality vistors a day that enjoy and spend time on my website that 1,000 that bounce off in 10 seconds.
Thanks for the information!
Ed @ FoundByDesign.com
August 5, 2008 2:20 am
I think these ranking numbers aren’t that important, because I write comments to a blog which is interesting for me. Why should I write comments to any informations which are not important for me? There are often people writing comments only to be on top positions on such a ranking, and i think that’s stupid anyhow. I guess everybody should decide by him-/herself if these numbers are really that important.
But in business that’s different, because there are numbers a very important fact (for example: “numbers of visitors”). That shows you if your website is visited well or not. This stats shows you if you have to change something on your website.
August 5, 2008 10:32 am
It seems to me that you’re making a substitution of notions. Stats are the indicators of your influence. They are not for sure the factor of influence but they help to estimate it.
And they give us a ground comparing the influence…
August 6, 2008 3:42 pm
I completely agree - some people do get hung up on pagerank and other things used to measure sites. I have been guilty of this in the past myself. As you stated there are much more important things to concentrate on.
August 12, 2008 7:39 am
I often fret about rankings and how the search engines are treating my site and blog. But as another post points out, if you give your readers and subscribers what they’re expecting, everything else falls into place.
August 15, 2008 3:00 am
Post, Post, Post! Love the blog!
August 18, 2008 6:19 pm
Your right bloggers are always stressed about stats, I think a blogger for a change should get people addicted/in love with what he/she is writing, or get inspired or something. It’s not just about PR and links.
August 20, 2008 12:57 pm
When I got all caught up in watching my page ranks, it drove me nuts. If you have a post that is ranking high, or page its great to leave what you have. Stop worrying so much… then none of this would be fun, would it?
August 26, 2008 12:19 am
I too get “wrapped up” in my stats, I am always trying to find new ways to get higher rankings. Who does’nt? The higher the rank, the more traffic.
August 26, 2008 12:08 pm
Thank you very much It is enough knowledge
August 27, 2008 4:55 am
Firstly congrats Randa - you have a great blog, and I am a huge fan of your talent.
I find it difficult not to get caught up in the ‘rankings’ war. Every morning as soon as I wake up, the computer is switched on, and I check for any changes/stats etc. But I suppose at the end of the day it is all about providing a quality service, and page rank should be secondary to that.