Let me use a more mainstream comparison, political blogs, which have a better foothold than we wine folks do. Kos (Markos Moulitsas) is a blogger. He started with Daily Kos and turned it into something. Arianna Huffington has a blog, but she’s not a blogger. She did not create her public existence through a blog, but instead used her notoriety/populatiry to start a blog. See the difference? It’s not a knock, merely an observation.

Question (a) can be answered with blogrolls and links, not necessarily hits. Why? Several reasons. First, as noted above, hits are not accurately measured. Second, some sites seem to get a lot of automated hits from RSS feeds or search engines (I have a cartoon site I haven’t updated in almost a year, and it gets hundreds of hits a day, seemingly at random). Blogrolls and links, though, tell you that other people found your entire site, or a particular post of sufficient interest that they wanted to tell everybody else about it.

What about service outside the circle? That is probably best measured by seeing where your hits come from. If all your hits come from other bloggers, even if you get a boatload, you are big AMONG bloggers, but you haven’t broken outside that circle. If, on the other hand, you’re getting hits from elsewhere, then you’re providing a service. Where? Not just from googling “wine blog.” Maybe, though, from googling “good white wine under $20,” or “2005 Jean-Pierre Robinot” or “C. Donatiello.” That means somebody was looking for information and you gave it to them.

Also, if you look at that list of “wine blogs,” half of the weren’t. Instead, they were extensions of existing mainstream commercial media. Does Steve Heimoff blog? Yeah, I guess so, but is he a blogger? No. He’s a well-established professional wine writer with an existing following, the benefits of a big magazine’s commercial footprint, and a blog. How about Eric Asimov? You’ve got to be kidding me! That’ not a “blog.” That’s an on-line extension of his NY Times column.

Take a look at Enobytes list. Let’s just look at five, #1, #25, # 50 and #75 and #100.

#1 Vinography- Yahoo shows 176,700 links. MSN shows THREE. Yup, three. Okay, go with Yahoo.

#25 The Fine Wine Blog from Berry Bros. & Rudd- Yahoo shows 40,838 links.

#50 Box Wines Blog- 8,108 links. Remember that one.

#75 Dragon Phoenix Wine Blog- 637 links. Yup, six-hundred-thirty-seven links.

#100 Joes’ Wine- 9,100 links. Wait, isn’t 9,100 more than 637? Yup, that’s what I remember from first grade.

Okay, so let’s grab a few that aren’t on the list, like this fine blog right here.

#?? Wannabe Wino- 15,300 links. How can you have that many different sites linking back to you and be behind a site that is almost invisible?

#?? 2 Days per Bottle- 11,400 links. You’re kicking my butt, girl, but I’m still top 50.

The Passionate Foodie- 13,500 links

Eating Leeds- 2,710

Domaine 547- 20,900

The bottom line for me? If I have the respect of my blogging and wine-loving peers, and I provide a service to wine lovers, I am happy.

Ranking lists appear to be most popular to those who have ranked high. Yet the artificiality of the rankings should make them think twice.

As you’ve shown – lists drawn up by googling a particular term are just lists of blogs or sites who’ve focussed (intentionally or not) on particular terms.

Could not agree more!