Is it worth it to crack Technorati’s Top 100 Most Favorited Blogs? While the honor might be flattering, it may not be extremely useful to you or your blog. Amit Agarwal contends that the popular trend of “reciprocal favoriting” schemes have devalued the list:
It takes almost 150 votes to get on Technorati Favorites list and that number is easy to achieve once you participate in any these Technorati link exchange programs.
Amit says that the schemes are even beginning to displace long-seated Top 100ers:
Even Jeff Jarvis, John Battelle and Gawker are on the exit route though guys like Michael Arrington, Darron Rowse, Merlin Mann and Frank Warren are still way up in the Technorati ladder.
Darren Rowse at ProBlogger also had some things to say about reciprocal favoriting and the Technorati Most Favorited. While Amit’s post dubbed the Top 100 Most Favorited list as “not worth it anymore” because of the exchange schemes, Darren looked at his web analytics to determine how much the Top 100 was worth (ooooh, data!). As number 3 on the Most Favorited list, Darren certainly has an amount of clout here. Is being in the Top 100 worth it?
A quick visit to my stats packages shows that in the scheme of things it’s hardly caused a blip on my traffic radar. Technorati does drive a few hundred readers per month to this blog—but not a single visitor came directly from that the Top 100 Favorites page.
A few visitors do arrive from my profile page which is also linked to from the Top 100 Favorited Blogs page—but this is no more than a handful of readers per day (5-10).
Darren discounts the value of the list as a traffic funnel. Instead, he says the best part about being favorited is being featured on users’ Technorati front pages:
The Top 100 Most Favorited list might give me a fleeting ego boost—but the fact that 1170+ Technorati users have a chance of seeing my latest post next time they go to Technorati’s front page is the real bonus in my mind.
As for the reciprocal favoriting schemes, Darren thinks he’s going out on a limb with his response:
This might not be popular—but I think that the practice of swapping favorites is a little sad and that the energy that some bloggers are putting into doing it could be much better spent by actually engaging with readers and encouraging genuine relationships to be formed.
It’s only going to be unpopular with reciprocal favoriters. I like that name for the trend because every time I read or hear about it, I can’t help but think of reciprocal linking. I agree with Darren.
Note that he’s not saying you shouldn’t encourage your readers to add you to their Technorati Favorites—Darren encourages his readers to favorite ProBlogger. We’d like you to add us to your favorites, too—and you could win a Nintendo Wii.
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