://URL Fan: Find Out Who's Talking About Your Site
February 6th 2008 00:14
We Love to Know Our Website Ranking
Whether we write a personal online journal, pen an authoritative niche blog, or run a thriving e-commerce website, most website and blog owners are at least a little curious about how our sites rank among the many other sites on the World Wide Web. That's why so many of us check our Technorati and Alexa rankings so often.
One More Place to Check Our Site's Popularity
Well, there's a new ranking site on the block, called ://URL Fan, which, though it has a slightly different focus--ranking sites based on their popularity in RSS feeds--is nevertheless one more helpful way to learn a bit more about where our site fits into the grand internet scheme.
What Is ://URL Fan All About?
://URL Fan describes itself this way:
://URLFAN is an evolving experiment designed to discover what websites the blogosphere is discussing all in real time. It does this by cultivating the content of thousands of RSS feeds and parsing billions of pieces of information.
The site also has this to say about what makes it different than other ranking websites:
Now every website owner can see who's talking about their site in real time and how they compare to every other site on the Internet. There are many sites designed to rank the "traffic" of a website, such as Alexa, however ://URLFAN is different. We rank sites according to their popularity in the fast moving and growing world of RSS feeds.
An Added Dimension to Our Sites' Stats
When I checked Writer's Notes on ://URL Fan today, it ranked 97,292 out of 1,515,000 websites, which places it in the top 7% of sites based on the amount of publicity it receives via RSS feed. (It's actually a little over 6.5%, but who's counting?) This is a stat that's helpful to know, because it adds one more dimension to a site owner's ability to assess a website's popularity, know where it stands among its peers, and determine whether or not s/he is doing something right in managing it.
According to this most recent check on ://URL Fan, Writer's Notes was mentioned in 9 unique RSS feeds. (A list of these feeds is also provided, along with excerpts from the content which relates to the site in question.) While I was quite happy with my blog's ranking, I was a bit surprised at the low number of RSS feeds that were abuzz about Writer's Notes, since I would have thought that a higher ranking would also indicate a higher number of RSS-feed mentions. But, I'll be keeping my eye on this metric in order to evaluate its significance over time.
A Site Worth Checking Out
Nevertheless, ://URL Fan is an informative site which you might just want to visit. I think it would be valuable to check it now and then to get a comparative picture of how your site's RSS popularity evolves over time. (For example, Writer's Notes' ranking has gone from 110,024 to 97,202 to its current 97,292 in less than a week--which is still good news--despite its slight drop today, since it's still in the top 100 K! It's also gone from being mentioned in 7 RSS feeds to 9 during that same period.)
Visit the ://URL Fan About Page to learn more about the site--and get ready to learn more about your own site, as well!
Happy stat-checking!
Jeanne
Did you enjoy this post? Know any other great stat-checking sites? Have any that are your particular favorites? We'd love to hear about them!
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Comment by Lynn Smythe
The Pagan Path
I Love Herbs
My Bike Diva blog has one RSS feed according to the site. Funny since that is my newest blog. Somebody found it. But Bike Diva hasn't been rated by URL Fan yet either. Guess I need to be patient.
Congratulations of the fantastic rating for Writer's Notes - yeah!!!!
Take care,
Lynn
Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
Here's a quote from the site's home page that addresses your issue: "A quick reminder that we're currently parsing hundreds of gigabytes of RSS content a day, so bear with us if your site is not listed or not yet ranked."
Apparently, they're having a bit of difficulty keeping up with the demand for their services! So hang in there--your blogs will show up eventually!
Thanks for the congrats!
Jeanne
Comment by AmyHuang
Project Job Search
Travel Debate
Travel String
Love Adventures
LOL
Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
Thanks for stopping by to chat!
Jeanne
Comment by Michele L.
Oh, I included you in my fictional link love today. Thought I'd let you know.
Hope you've been having a great week!
Smiles,
Michele
Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
It's an interesting site, isn't it? It's also interesting to learn that our blogs are ranked close together!
Thanks for including me in your fictional link love post! I'll check it out.
My week's actually been one of those "when-it-rains-it-pours" weeks--various members of my immediate and remote family ill--and we're just doing our best to get through it!
Hope your week has been better than ours!
Jeanne
Comment by Tom Colvin
I was intrigued to discover that one can get an email notice regarding change of rank. I signed up -- I must be a masochist.
Tom
Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
Great to see you! Glad you've found ://URL Fan interesting, though sorry your blog isn't yet ranked. Give them time. They'll get around to you eventually!
I haven't signed up for the change-of-rank notification e-mail. I guess I figure I wouldn't want to receive an e-mail telling me my rank had gone down--though, lately, each time I've checked the site, my rank has been higher. Perhaps I'll sign up at some point. For you, signing up may be a good thing, because perhaps one day you'll check your e-mail and learn that your site has been ranked.
Thanks for stopping by!
Jeanne