don't give up your day job?

Novedge's blog started a flurry of activity in the CAD world this week, with its commentary on a post by Guy Kawasaki. He was commenting on the typical payout from Google AdSense saying that 203,000 page views generated about $280 in income from Google....from our point of view, it equals the heating bill right now in our snow-bound Denver location!

It gave rise for Novedge to comment, resulting in some 17 (and counting) comments. Novedge listed the Top CAD blogs on Technorati (we were one of them, that was nice). But what was interesting were the web sites that were not included. Sean Dotson's MCADForums are not included, and Randall Newton's AECNews is not there either!

First off, Sean Doton's MCADForums.com. (Sean is featured in an earlier posting on this site.) Sean posted his comments at his forum, titled 'Yet more blog bias.' Sean comments that "So why am I left out? Because I do not use one of the "canned" blog programs. Technorati does a horrible job of tracking anything that does not fit the mold of what they call a blog."

Randall Newton, editor of AECNews, also commented on this: "I'm sure AECnews gets more traffic than most of those sites, yet it isn't on the list. Like Sean's site, I'm not using a major blog engine. "

BTW, I have it on authority (I have seen the web logs) that Sean's site gets more than 200,000 page views every month and Randall scored more than 300,000 in Decmber 2006...yet neither are included on Technorati's listing. Why? Sean points this out: "The problem with Technorati's systems is that it places too much emphasis on blog to blog links and largely ignores links from non-blogs. Since my site has been around for such a long time many of my incoming links are web page based, not blog based."

Rick Stavanja, CAD and web IT guru, and head of CADwire.net tries to clarify this a little. "The point is that Sean's right both in saying in saying that traffic is a more reasonable way to compare site popularity, and Technorati doesn't measure traffic -- Especially within the context of monetization that led us to this point. But the best way to measure and report traffic is best done in a fair and consistent way. TAC has certainly taught me that."

Essentially, what's preferable from a marketing perspective? A blogger with a high technorati listing is good, but what if someone is as influential, yet is using different technology?...one not recognized by Technorati? Randall and Sean are both highly influential, respected in the industry, and not about to be discounted. If I was running a CAD industry trade show, i would be bringing both of them to it!

Regardess, thanks to Novedge for bringing this up. It made a somewhat interesting week actually more vibrant.

BTW, "snow thursday' occurs again tomorrow here in Denver. We will be mostly at home for the event.

rach xx

Comments

[Deelip Menezes]

I was quite surprised to see the number of comments. It goes to show that CAD bloggers do care about their rating. I am relatively new to blogging and thanks to this discussion, got to know more about Technorati.