Very nice, Vlad! I know very little about the realestate niche, but I know it’s a profitable one. I’ve been telling myself I’m going to by a well-established realestate site some day soon. I know Adsense brings in over a buck for just about every single click on a small niche sites I have about mortgages, so I know it’s very profitable.

Anyway, good luck with the links, hope it goes viral!

[…] How ’bout that? They found most of the real estate blogs I read, but BHB is notably missing. […]

Data seems a bit skewed and actually more hand calculated than anything. Not picking on #65 but lets use them as an example - a quick check of a few RE blogs that I know that didnt make the list revealed rankings in all three categories better than #65’s numbers ( PR:3 technorati: 2124856 alexa: 4493571 ).

Example (one of many)

Miamism.com: PR4 technorati: 87,977 alexa: 751,419

Tony

Vlad - Interesting concept. I’m curious about the “GR Rank”. I assume it’s some formula combining Google PR, Technorati and Alexa. I understand if your programmer doesn’t want to divulge all the details, but it would be interesting to know some of the components of the “GR Rank”.

Thanks for including us, and I’ll be watching for the next update. Too bad you can’t “force” an update to get rid of all the “N/As”… or can you?

“For Advertisers
GeekRealtors Rank will quickly show you where on the internet to spend your advertising dollars.”

With the above statement, I’d recommend at least knowing how the algorithm is being generated.

This is a somewhat bigger issue than if this blog or that blog is included. It comes down to presenting subjective opinion as objective analysis. If the list is only comprised of blogs that you are personally aware of, then you should say so.

Tony

About the N/A’s, I am rerunning the scripts now. they usually take an hour because I don’t want to ping the API’s every second.

I manage over 500 blog rankings across multiple sites, there is no way I would take the time to hand calculate any ranking, it’s all done based on a script that mixes up the pagerank, alexa rank, and technorati.

any other questions, fire away

Remember, it’s less about who ranks #65 or #55 and more about providing a central place to find real estate blogs and see their latest headlines.

Hopefully you find some like minded boggers from the list already

From my experience with my own list, the number one benefit of a central place is it drives a bunch of traffic to the blogs that are on the list, regardless of where they are in rank.

45n5

The issue isnt how the weightings are calculated. It’s how the blogs are seeded.

You are saying that these are the Top 100 sites based on some weighting of Alexa, PR, and Technorati but they appear to more a hand selected blogs that are weighted by those factors. If your code were actually crawling Alexa and Technorati, the results might be very different, more complete, and thereforefore much more representative of the “Top 100 RE Blogs” title.

But, hey, anything in the name of driving views and getting links, right?

Tony

Thanks for the inbound link! I wasn’t aware that Wilmington NC :: Real Estate had made it on the list. Good to know. I am an official Realtor Geek! You’re always welcome to learn more about Wilmington NC.
Walt Dowdy
Wilmington NC :: Real Estate

Nice list! Thanks for including my site and like others I wasn’t aware I even made it on the list. Feels good to get a little bit of recognition for the hard work I have put into the site. Look forward to moving up on the list as my Technorati and Alexa rankings are not listed(hint hint).

Last, anybody interested in starting a Blogroll, Friends or Favorites Top 100 list to help each other out with some quality link exchanges?

Before someone comments on how “reciprocal links” are a thing of the past or don’t offer any advantage towards your rankings. I don’t know about you but I would rather have 10, 20 or 30 quality real estate related reciprocal links than Zero one way links.

Daniel Gaitan
Real Estate News and Tips for Buyers, Sellers, Agents and Investors

[…] announcing the list of Top 100 Real Estate Blogs, I realize that I left many are under the impression that […]

Glad to see Sacramento Real Estate and Luxury Homes made the list. The Sacramento Real Estate Voice is always thrilled for the mention. Thank you.

Very valuable list. Getting a blog is def. our next step!

[…] I also would like to acknowledge all who took their time and commented on the post that originally announced the list. […]

I actually found this post today - a little late. But was surprised to find my blog making it into the top 100. Hard to believe it! Have to be happy with some recognition.

I’m honored to be included. Thanks for reading

Nice list. Glad to see we made it, along with 15 of our Tomato Blogging Graduates. Looks like we’ve got a formula for success.

Interesting Blog and a Cool List - Thanks I am proud to be on it! There is nothing like blogging to get the word out about your local real estate market, neighborhoods and your lisitngs

Would love to be considered in the future - our blog is now a PR5 and gets strong traffic. Thanks for the list.

Vlad - thanks for the consideration - appreciate it!

Vlad,

I don’t know if you have read this article:
http://activerain.com/blogsview/172884/The-Problem-With-Alexa

As much as I love being showcased in the top 15 (#14) for you list, I feel that your ranking system is flawed by even including Alexa. Alexa at one time had some value (albeit simply for being extra-ordinary) but recently, their ranking systems are simply unreliable and weak.

I know your effort is to simply rank sites according to some uniform and subjective measure, but unfortunately, the method chosen falls short.

Objective Inbound link counts, objective inbound blog link counts, objective inbound traffic and objective time spent on site would be a fantastic measure of rank, but unfortunately you aren’t going to achieve this with the tools you are using.

Vlad,

I see that. My only point was that by including Alexa as a factor at all, you are unable to get any precise result whatsoever.

I love the idea of a ranking system for RE industry blogs, but there is a huge challenge: objective data. By using faulty data to rank anything, even if it is only 1 of 3 factors, it immediately negates the effort.
Sorry.

I do like the idea, and I love being included, and quite favorably as well… but the list being based on faulty data just seems awkward. Not trying to be a smarty pants nor a party pooper… just want those included to realize that this data is flawed and should probably not be taken too literally.

You are right - for now, there is no objective measure by which we can all be compared, at least not on the levels you are aiming for.

If everyone used the same traffic gauge, and it was evenly flawed across all platforms, then at least we would all be measured equally. Alexa is not such a tool. Something like Google Analytics, Site meter or even the BlogTopSites (BlogFlux) javascript added to all sites would give an objective measure of traffic and comparison.

Google PR is hailed as the element of measure for weight in the SE’s and can be considered somewhat objective, but there is a huge difference between a PR5 and a PR5. What I mean is, you can be a 5.9 or a 5.1 and yet still appear as a PR5… when they are entirely different values.

Inbound link counts are crazily measured as well.
Google claims about 10% of Yahoo’s numbers.
And what about sites that have inbound links to multiple domains all pointing to the same place? If you add up all links to the combinations of URLs I have pointing to RET, Yahoo’s inbound link count is around 100k. But, if you take just my main domain, it’s more like 70k.

So what I think I am getting at is, why have a list at all if it is going to be impossible to be objective? Kind of hard to make any sort of ranking claim when the data is fishy.

45n5-

PR is a measure of “weight” (as I wrote). I never stated that it was a measure of rank in the SERPs as you infer. For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagerank

Don’t mean to be a downer… this list has to be ‘for fun’ after all, given that the data can’t honestly be relied upon as fact.

RE: “Also, it could be argued that because the top100 real estate weights the three with a formula it is more accurate than any single one of the metrics above.”

Are you saying that 3 wrongs make a right? I thought that was 3 lefts.

Not looking for an arm wrestle, I just think that since you agree that there exists a flaw in the data used to calculate the results, that there should at a minimum be a clear disclaimer that says so.

Again, I enjoy this idea. I think it is neat. But it’s hardly objective, no matter how we spin it.

“PR is a measure of “weight” (as I wrote). I never stated that it was a measure of rank in the SERPs as you infer. For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagerank”

Did you read the link you sent?

it’s the “weight” of a page shown in Google Search Results:

Quote from wikipedia: “In Google’s other search services (such as its primary Web search) PageRank is used to weight the relevance scores of pages shown in search results.”

“Again, I enjoy this idea. I think it is neat. But it’s hardly objective, no matter how we spin it.”

It takes the 3 most objective measures on the web to rank the websites. If you have a better solution for ranking sites then share it

Until then, enjoy!

Ok - so I made and ass of me by ass-uming that wikipedia could speak for me…

Pagerank as I was using it, and intended it to be used was in this sense:

“PageRank is based on but the amount of incoming links, references from important ( other high PageRank ) web sites, and the level of a page indicated by the internal navigation of a web site.”

All of which has nothing to do with “rank” in the SERPs, as I was saying… which is the “weight” I was referring to, and that which is commonly understood.

Mostly objective is like being kind of pregnant. You either are, or you aren’t. The question becomes, if you don’t have a truly objective way of measuring something, then should you claim to be able to measure it at all?

Just because there is no (obviously) better way to measure something doesn’t make it any closer to true.

So for now… we’ll just have to take it for what it’s worth, even if Alexa has no idea of how much traffic sites are actually receiving.

Good job on it so far. I’ll check back to see how it improves.

Vlad,

It is all good. And it’s a joy to be here. Thanks for the hospitality. No looking to wear out a welcome.

I’m sorry… back again. I just can’t resist it seems.

About the inclusion of Alexa as an element of your measurement. It just seems so irrelevant. Does anyone even still install the Alexa toolbar (which only works in IE by the way)?
The crazy thing about the stats they present is that they are an estimation based on data they have collected from users of their installed toolbar. If this isn’t the most unreliable sampling of data to make a measure of a site’s actual ranking, then I don’t know what is.
It’s like polling less than 1% of users to get a sense of what the truth is. This can’t be something one would consider objective.

Jim,

It’s not related but have q question about “Tomato Blogs”. It appears your are guys some sort of network. Can you tell me a little more about this network?

It’s just curiosity of mine. BTW if I missed any blogs from tomato blogs, they still can e-mail me and I can ad them to the list. As long as they are real estate related.

Vlad - thanks for including us in the updated list

Not trying to be the downer - in fact want this to be as good a list as it can be. My issue is really that Alexa is not a good enough measure for your guys to include it in the formula.

Vlad,
We are about to make a very big change in our online model. From there you will be able to see all of our clients, and how we are networked together. Stay tuned.

And Cyndee Haydon - definitely one for the list!

I’m getting server not found errors on the Top100 site Vlad…

Another example of how wildly poor the reporting from Alexa is… Miller Samuel’s Matrix - arguably a top 10 most traffic’d RE blog has you posting an Alexa ranking of: 545,538. The data is so far off as a relative measure to reality. I’m telling you, it’s got to go.

[…] Somehow we’ve managed to get into the Top 100 Real Estate Blogs and this isn’t the only site to rank us in the top 100. […]