Blogging : The unethical way...

Though I have completed nearly 2.5 years of blogging,at one stage,I was a newbie in the field of blogging.If you check my posts during my early days,you would understand the level of immaturity,which is quite expected.The first thing you would observe is none of the posts are linked to each other but with frequent blogging,things have changed and there are continual improvements.

During the initial days of blogging,I wasn't aware about Technorati[guess I was dumb ] and other sites that give an insight as to where your blog stands in the crowd.It is quite obvious that the initial rank would have been in millions but as of today,Thoughtsprevail stands at 56,513 on Technorati.So,there are 103 incoming links from 76 blogs. Needless to mention that Technorati keeps a track of the no of blogs linking to your blog(i.e. Rank gets calculated based on the number of incoming links to your blog).So, 56,513 on Technorati is definitely a good rank and with time, it would go even further.

But does this rank mean that this blog(or for that matter,any other blog) is getting good readership or it is a blog with good content.This question is sure difficult to answer.IMHO,your Technorati rank is not a justification that your blog has more readership.So,suppose you want to improve your rank,you can follow two easy ways:

1. Comment on other's blog: "Hey nice blog you have,check out mine..I have blogrolled you..do mine as well"
2. Link exchange(i.e Exchange links and also add each other as Favorites in Technorati)

This means A blogrolls B and B blogrolls A(and sometimes both A and B are unaware about each other's content).In fact,India's prominent pro-blogger John TP got his Technorati rank increased by a massive number just by favorite exchange(A and B favorite each other).Check out his post here.But now,this trend and Link Exchange trend has come on many blogs where bloggers openly invite other bloggers to do a link exchange and trust me,the blog rank has gone up by leaps and bounds,in all the cases.

Since,I am a blogger, rank matters for me as well and I would love to see my blog rank better on Technorati.As a blogger,you also need to read lot of blogs as well and when I found the Link Exchange post on many of the blogs(hence,I have not mentioned a link here since,many bloggers would feel offended),it tempted me to have a similar post on my blog.But after giving a thought,I reached the conclusion,this aspect of blogging is very unethical.If you are a blogger producing good content,readers would follow you,you need not persuade them to read your blog For Example:"If your are a company having a good product,customers sure will catch hold of you.In a nutshell, Higher rank on Technorati is not directly proportional to your readership.

Now coming back to BlogRolling(or Link Exchange), are we supposed to blogroll only if the person blogrolls you.The answer is a No.You can blogroll blog A,if you feel Blog A has good content and your readers would be interested in reading Blog A as well.At least you have the Blog in your records and should not be worried about loosing your Favorited Blogs(which lie in the Firefox bookmarks).Definitely if you are a blogger striking good content,blog A would (automatically) blog roll you, for sure

Conclusion:
Remember, no matter what your blog talks about,it will always have its dedicated share of readers but to gain readership(or higher ranking),a (blind) link exchange would be highly unethical.This unethical way would cost you the loss of existing readership(which is far more important than your Technorati rank).Definitely,Technorati by no way,can authenticate the incoming link on these basis.

Apparently,while listening to the Guy Kawasaki's video podcast(on Blogging and Blog Evangelism),the topic of blogrolling was covered by him and guess, this was the right way to do ethical blogging.




May be this rule could also be added to the Blogger's Code of Conduct.Remember,Blogging is not a competition, but a simple and easy way to communicate your thoughts to a wide range of audience.

Related Posts:
Blogger's Code of Conduct
Two years of successful blogging