Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Library Blogs and Google PageRank

Library Blogs and Google PageRank. I enjoyed Walt Crawford’s recent column (http://cites.boisestate.edu/civ5i10.pdf) on library blogs. He attempted to rank them by using a variety of measures.

One item he did not look at is Google’s PageRank (PR) value of each blog. Google describes PR as, “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.” (See http://www.google.com/intl/en/technology/.)

The higher the PR, the more weight Google gives the blog. As such, the higher ranked PR blogs are more likely to be found when people conduct searches for keywords. This is what brings search engine traffic to a blog and gives it visibility outside the library world. You can view the PR of any site on the Web by installing the Google Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/?promo=mor-tb-en) on your browser.

I have taken the list of library blogs generated by Walt Crawford and have listed them here by PR order. Please note that PR changes over time and this list was compiled on 23 August 2005.

PR 8 Library Blog: (1)

ResearchBuzz (http://www.researchbuzz.com/)

PR 7 Library Blogs: (8)

The Shifted Librarian (http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/)
Library Stuff (http://www.librarystuff.net/)
Librarian.net (http://www.librarian.net/)
beSpacific (http://www.bespacific.com/)
Open Stacks (http://openstacks.net/os/)
Information Literacy Land of Confusion (http://lorenzen.blogspot.com)
LibraryLaw Blog (http://blog.librarylaw.com/)
Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepw.htm)

PR 6 Library Blogs: (34)

Free Range Librarian (http://www.freerangelibrarian.com/)
Tame the Web (http://www.tametheweb.com/ttwblog/)
LibrarianInBlack (http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/)
Catalogablog (http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/)
Commons-blog (http://www.info-commons.org/blog/)
Caveat Lector (http://cavlec.yarinareth.net/)
TechnoBiblio (http://www.technobiblio.com/)
Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog (http://orweblog.oclc.org/)
Aardvark Speaks (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/blog/)
SiteLines (http://www.workingfaster.com/sitelines/)
Blogwithalibrary.net (http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/)
Walking paper (http://www.walkingpaper.org/)
Scitech library question (http://www.stlq.info/)
LibraryPlanet.com (http://www.libraryplanet.com/)
Lipstick Librarian (http://www.lipsticklibrarian.com/blog/)
It’s all good (http://scanblog.blogspot.com/)
Ten Thousand Year Blog (http://sanchezkisser.com/ILblog/)
Library Monk (http://www.librarymonk.com/)
Library Web Chic (http://librarywebchic.net/wordpress/)
Confessions of a Mad Librarian (http://edwards.orcas.net/~misseli/blog/)
Walt at Random (http://walt.lishost.org/)
Oss4lib (http://www.oss4lib.org/)
eclectic librarian (http://www.eclecticlibrarian.net/blog/)
Phil Bradley’s Blog (http://www.philb.com/blog/blogger.html)
BlogJunction (http://webjunction.lishost.org/)
Librarian Avengers (http://www.librarianavengers.org/)
Beyond the Job (http://librarycareers.blogspot.com/)
LibraryCog (http://librarycog.uwindsor.ca:8087/artblog/librarycog/)
Pod Bay Door (http://www.podbaydoor.com/)
Blogdriverswaltz (http://www.blogdriverswaltz.com/)
Professional-Lurker (http://www.professional-lurker.com/)
Laughing Librarian (http://www.laughinglibrarian.com/)
Infomusings blog (http://www.infomuse.net/blog/)
LawLib Tech (http://www.lawlibtech.com/)

PR 5 Library Blogs: (16)

mammusings (http://www.mamamusings.net/)
Invisible Library (http://sanchezkisser.com/ILblog/)
TangognaT (http://www.tangognat.com/)
Collecting my Thoughts (http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/)
Online Insider (http://www.onlineinsider.net/)
Wandering Eyre (http://wanderingeyre.blogspot.com/)
Information Wants to Be Free (http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php)
Pop Goes the Library (http://www.nexgenlibrarian.net/popculture/)
Librarian’s Rant (http://lblog.jalcorn.net/)
LibraryTechtonics (http://www.librarytechtonics.info/)
Tiny Little Librarian (http://tinylittlelibrarian.blog-city.com/)
Distant Librarian (http://distlib.blogs.com/)
Dave’s Blog (http://daweed.blogspot.com/)
Tales from the “Liberry” (http://liberry.blogspot.com/)
Library Clips (http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/)
Filipino Librarian (http://filipinolibrarian.blogspot.com/)

PR 4 Library Blog: (1)

Feel-good Librarian (http://feelgoodlibrarian.typepad.com/)

As you can see, nine blogs on Walt’s list had high Google PR scores of 7 or 8. By contrast, only one blog had a relatively low PR of 4. The largest amount of library blogs (34 of them) on Walt’s list had a PR of 6 with a smaller number (16) having a 5.

I am sure there are library blogs out there with lower PR scores but they didn’t have the reach to make Walt’s list.

The PR Google assigns a site is no indicator about how good a blog is or isn’t. However, it is interesting to see how Google perceives the authority of a blog to be by the amount of PR it assigns a particular library blog.


The LL said...

Damn you, Researchbuzz!! Better keep your eye on your rear-view mirror!

--The LL

jack said...

hey, thanks for the list..been waiting for a list like this with pr's...thanks again.