Monday, November 28, 2005
Ecosystem Changes I’d Like To See
N.Z. Bear is in the midst of changes to the Blogosphere Ecosystem, so you may note your blog’s rank has changed dramatically, and that may or may not be where it ends up.
My first impression was that perhaps he’d also pruned out some of the thousands of spam blogs clogging the lowest ranks, but looking closer, that seems not to be the case. That’s a change I could get behind, but an awful lot of work. You’d almost need to enlist the blogging public to check and submit for removal those blogs, almost wiki-like.
I can take or leave the purging of inline trackbacks as links that count, though that wouldn’t be needed if other moves were made. Some of the gaming has nothing to do with inline trackbacks and such trackbacks appearing in open trackback posts. If open trackbacks are manual, you’re foiled. If someone starts multiple blogs and links themselves repeatedly, you’re foiled. If someone hosts open trackbacks, the inline trackbacks may not count, but the obligatory links to the open trackback host will.
First, if Don Surber is the biggest problem, banish Don Surber.
Second, purge the “blogs” that aren’t blogs.
Third, as best you can, purge spam blogs.
Fourth, and most importantly as it makes item one moot, limit the number of unique links that are counted from any one blog to another. Five seems like a good number.
What does that do? It limits the usefulness eevn of open trackbacks that are manual, and of hosting open trackbacks for the hosts who benefit from massive, nutrition-free linkage. It limits the usefulness of starting multiple blogs and linking yourself over and over, or guest blogging and cross-posting/linking yourself over and over.
It’s a simple rule that presumably would be easy to implement.
