Pattern is now 10, 10, 10, 9.6, 10, 10, 10, 10. Whether this is as a result of retrospective catchup or subsequent accumulation, I’ve not got a clue.

Catchya later

Okay. I’ve done my scientific experiment to prove that Jim is quite right – not that I didn’t believe him. I just wanted to confirm that it all works the way I thought it did.

I published 8 posts (to date) in June. All except two (2) posts were published while the PR widget was displayed on my blog. I removed the widget after I’d published 3 posts.

The third post had just started climbing in its rating when the widget was removed. It did not improve its rating until the widget was reinstated, when it shot to a PR rating of 10 within a few days.

The two posts that followed were published during the time the widget was removed from my blog. Not only did they have no data recorded against them during that time, but they didn’t register anything after the widget was reinstated, and still remain at PR displayed rating of 1.

The other five (5) posts shot to a PR displayed rating of 10 within a few days of the publishing date of each, all of which occurred smoothly either before the widget was removed or after it was reinstated.

I know I’m the world’s greatest blog post writer , but to be able to write posts that give a rating pattern of 10, 10, 10, 1, 1, 10, 10, 10 to order must be verging on genius level.

Not.

I don’t think the observed results were coincidental.

Catchya later

As Ken says I really appreciate the time both you and Melanie have spent trying to enlighten us.

Personally I think we all need to go to a pub, sit down over a few drinks (LOTS), which will make it clear to all us of involved.

1. Last 50 stories
Totally understand and makes perfect sense.

2. Ranking of blogs against each other
Now I do need to make it clear that I don’t want, or need to know, Colonial Sanders secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken but I would like to have a better conceptual understanding of it.

Trying to read between the lines of what might be saying each week you monitor the stats of the blogs. To determine the ranking of a blog you would probably be adding together that blog’s story engagement for a week based on all metrics measure on all posts in the feed (or just the 50 posts?).

For example it might be Monday – Sunday:
Blog 1:
2000 views x 0.001 + 93 links x 0.001 + 100 bookmarking x 10 + 30 tweets x 7 + 15 comments x 10 = Blog 1 Engagement

Blog 2:
300 bookmarking x10 + 60 tweets x 7 + 100 comments x10 = Blog 2 Engagement

The blog with the higher engagement ranks higher.

3. The statistics
I know it is probably not possible, or practical, and perhaps not statistics that others would like. But if I look at the type of Widget I would like to have on my blogs it relate to the ability to customise the widget to show the stats I wanted.

For example, I will love to show which posts had the most Delicious/Diigo saves because that tells my readers these posts are posts people like to refer back to.

Same with having an ability to show posts with the highest comments – I have posts that I would want to showcase because of the amount of information shared in the comments.

These are types of features a person like me would be willing to pay for especially if I was also able to download and easily analyze these statistics.

We only consider the last 50 stories in a feed int he top posts widget. That lets older stories drop off after a while. 50 was chosen becasue that’s the typical total number of posts /year for small bloggers where 1 year is about right while more prolific bloggers usually want to showcase their best stuff. As a zero configuration widget 50 is good at satisfying abroad range of users.

2. “You are obviously comparing the ranking of each blog against their rank the week before (and are showing if improved or decreased ranking). But I still remain confused how you might be comparing those relative ranks of the blogs to determine who is number 1.”

I apologize for being confusing on this point. We do indeed compare week over week performance. We do that based on the unnormalized feed engagement scores. So in this sense the feed ranking is not feed based. Its just the raw underlying feed engagement so that would be more akin to thematic.

3. “Livescience is No. 1. Is the fact that it is pushing a lot of posts out daily the main reason why it ranks in this spot? Similar for Inside High Ed which is N0. 3 spot. Once again pushing out higher volumes of post.”

Yes when comparing raw feed engagement post velocity is a factor becasue it gives an audience more to engage with. In practical terms a publisher needs to have a sizable audience to match a high volume of posts so its usually reflects an authentically good blog. I could kick out 20 posts per day on my blog but that would stretch my audience pretty thin and as a result my engagement/post would go way down. There’s obviously some wiggle room in the middle ground. We’re hoping to build on what we have now to offer publishers more detailed analytics that show more of these nuances.

4. “I do feel for you with that as I know how bloggers struggle with understanding what statistics means. Which is why I ask so many questions because part of my role is to get to a point where I understand it adequately to be able to explain to others.”

Thanks!

I’ve been silent but not unobservant.

Wow! This is some complex, intricate stuff.

I wonder about it’s intricacy, for it takes educated and experienced minds to understand what the whole thing means and how it works (I’m still trying to work it out).

I’m not knocking it – I’m just observing here. I use PostRank and also support PostRank on my blog.

Put it this way, Jim – if I were to write a post to explicitly unpack all this, it would require some considerable thought and crafting to write the post that others could understand what it’s all about (I speak only for myself here – Sue might have a more lucid idea of how it all comes together).

If you catch my drift, there’s a lot that confuses the blogger who’s into this sort of thing. I wonder at the meaning it all has to those who are less enthusiastic about how it all works and just want to look at ‘ratings’.

I thoroughly appreciate your time spent with us on this matter. I also thank Melanie Baker for her inputs on Sue’s and my own blog.

Catchya later
from Middle-earth

1. “We consider the last 50 stories in the feed for the top post widget. No stories from other feeds are included in any way”

Does that mean you calculate the medium for the PostRank widget ranking based on the last 50 stories and this is then compared with all the posts in your entire feed that PostRank is referencing? To come up with the top 10 post that are displayed?

So for example, you could have a post from 12 months ago appear provided your feed had been in PostRank for 12 months?

2. Back to ranking of blogs by topic.

When blogs are ranked against each other by topic. For example, education it is compared blogs against each other using their feed based ranking. You are obviously comparing the ranking of each blog against their rank the week before (and are showing if improved or decreased ranking).

But I still remain confused how you might be comparing those relative ranks of the blogs to determine who is number 1.

For example if you look at Education this week (http://www.postrank.com/topic/education)

Livescience is No. 1. Is the fact that it is pushing a lot of posts out daily the main reason why it ranks in this spot? Similar for Inside High Ed which is N0. 3 spot. Once again pushing out higher volumes of post.

Seems there is stats in the metric that are making this ranking less reliable.

But laughing I see now The Edublogger has been included in Education and it has jumped up the list.

3. Meritocratic analytics system that makes sense

I do feel for you with that as I know how bloggers struggle with understanding what statistics means. Which is why I ask so many questions because part of my role is to get to a point where I understand it adequately to be able to explain to others.

Meanwhile I shall go back to Larry’s post to explain that I was incorrect with the views data and to explain what it means (we hope).

Yes.

2. “The PostRank widget use Thematic which is why your 10 scores in the feed-based don’t necessarily become included. It is also why why you can have one score on the feedbased and slightly different on the PostRank widget.”

Correct.

3. “Surely the thematic that the PostRank widget is using is your median story across all your blog posts that PostRank has been tracking? As it can’t be using a median based on lots of bloggers values since then you would see that some people scores were really low on their widgets.”

We consider the last 50 stories in the feed for the top post widget. No stories from other feeds are included in any way.

2. “I’m assuming that the ranking of blogs by topic is based on thematic? http://www.postrank.com/topic/education?”

That could make sense but the answer currently is that Topics are feed-based so that you see the best from all the feeds in the topic. We aren’t really done/happy with the Topic content consumption model yet. Depending on the phase of the moon I thing thematic or feed-based make sense. Sorry if this sense inconsistent. :-/

3. “http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/ is only on the blogging list while http://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org/ is on education. Have I done something wrong when adding the topic categories? As The Edublogger is as much education as blogging.”

You are free to submit your blog to any topic that makes sense for it. If it fits in education and blogging then by all means file it under both. We fully expect for blogs to be classified in many topics. In fact this crowd sourced classification data is really handy information to have. Topics can be treated like tags in this way.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to get all this information out there. Don’t let the questions stop! Our intent is to create a transparent, meritocratic analytics system that makes sense. I know we are not as clear as we need to be in this area, yet but we are working to get there. These exchanges are invaluable to that end.

Cheers,

Jim