Cision Blog Rankings: Labour of Love Better Than Expected

SPIT! SPIT! and DEEP SWALLOW. I'd have to agree with Iain Dale's point of view. We sometimes do you know. Agree. And there have been times when we have even said so. Obviously Iain doesn't. He's a bit shy. But I'll not link to any of those just now anyway.

Iain's right. It's quite a surprise to see Labour of Love listed at Number 30: UK Top 50 Blogs - that's ALL blogs by the way, not just political witterings - by some folk called Cision. Tenth in the Political category. 11th if we decide Bloggerheads, ranked 15, is Politics rather than Marketing. Actually it is both. And a damn sight better at marketing than politics. According to My Gran, 103 last month, really.

Then again, as this is all blogs across all sectors, it would have to be a surprise to see Iain Dale ranked second. He couldn't even win an Orwell! He _couldn't_ win an Orwell. _Couldn't_ win an Orwell. _What_ a *fucking* _wanker_! Sang the terraces.

There are lots of omissions. Then again there were and still are lots of quirks in the rankings produced by Iain himself in his own name, and latterly through his organ Total Politics.

In the post Iain reels off some obvious omissions of the left, right and centre. Mostly group blogs as it goes. Conservative Home, arguably the greatest omission of the lot, he doesn't raise.

It is always a pleasure to exceed expectations. Labour of Love has been consistently ranked a top-50 to top-100 political blog by Iain's readers. Somewhere around 30th among these for actual traffic. Sometimes in the top-20 of referrers-to-Iain. By some way the most important measure of blog-portance. We are not worthy oh great Iain! But LOL's not 11th in anything quantitative anyway. Not yet.

We would like to think that the Cision list is based on quality rather than quantity, on fresh not stale, on stone truth over spin cycle, on humble insight over feeble bollocks, on self deprecation over stonking hubris, on climactic potential (going forward) rather than statwank achievement (going nowhere). We'd like to thank our parents, and blah de blah de blah...

That Cision List in full (nicked their code and the result's not so pretty) (stripped out all the code and corrected link 49):

1 http://mashable.com/ Technology
2 http://iaindale.blogspot.com/ Politics
3 http://www.hurryupharry.org/ Politics
4 http://www.badscience.net/ Science
5 http://www.order-order.com/ Politics
6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/ Technology
7 http://ftalphaville.ft.com/ Finance
8 http://uk.gizmodo.com/ Technology
9 http://uk.techcrunch.com/ Technology
10 http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/ Politics
11 http://devilskitchen.me.uk/ Politics
12 http://timworstall.typepad.com/ Economics
13 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog Technology
14 http://politicalbetting.com/ Politics
15 http://www.bloggerheads.com/ Marketing
16 http://www.nevillehobson.com/ Technology<
17 http://www.techdigest.tv/ Technology
18 http://www.pickledpolitics.com/ Politics
19 http://b3ta.com/ Humour
20 http://www.eurogamer.net/ Games
21 http://simonwillison.net/ Technology
22 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog Politics
23 http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/ Technology
24 http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/ Technology
25 http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/Celeb
26 http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/ Design
27 http://www.davidairey.com/ Design
28 http://www.gapingvoid.com/ Technology
29 http://snptacticalvoting.blogspot.com/ Politics
30 http://chrispaul-labouroflove.blogspot.com/ Politics
31 http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog Comics
32 http://www.eatmedaily.com/ Food
33 http://www.headshift.com/blog/ Marketing
34 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda Media
35 http://econsultancy.com/ Technology
36 http://www.shinyshiny.tv/ Technology
37 http://samizdata.net/ Politics
38 http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog Sport
39 http://www.vg247.com/ Games
40 http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/ Technology
41 http://www.hecklerspray.com/Celebrity
42 http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/ Technology
43 http://www.electricpig.co.uk/ Technology
44 http://www.chromasia.com/ Photography
45 http://takingliberties.squarespace.com/ Politics
46 http://www.opendemocracy.net/ Politics
47 http://www.looktothestars.org/ Celebrity
48 http://www.blahblahtech.com/ Technology
49 http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/ Technology
50 http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/ Technology

FOOTNOTE Fri 10:19: The Cision methodology is interesting and far more robust than say the Total Politics rankings. Based on opt-in top-ten list creation from a network emanating from the deeply conservative Iain Dale's Diary. This one is based on in-bound links, traffic, number of updates, total posts, plus a little Cision nous ... and there you have it.