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Featured Blogs: Let People Vote

  1. janeaustensworld
    Member

    WordPress support told me that they would not share their "algorithms" with me when I asked a reasonable and rational question: Why was another blog given the featured post when 99.9% of the posts tagged with Jane Austen's World came from my blog? And frankly, I don't think my posts are poorly written or poorly received or poorly linked to other sites.

    I tested the algorithm today, writing a post that used the term "Jane Austen's World" at least 30 times in one post, and that linked to 35 blogs, websites, or posts with links to Jane Austen's World or with terms that used Jane Austen and World.

    Interestingly, the other blog (with a 6 week old post) is still the featured blog for Jane Austen's World. Now, folks, my blog's name is Jane Austen's World and it sits #1 on the first google page when you type in the term. So, what is WordPress's purpose for a featured blog? This is very strange. The other blog has been the featured blog since before Christmas.

    What I propose is this: have readers vote on which blog should be featured in a particular category. Forget the algorithm, which, according to the scores of complaints about featured blogs, is obviously not working well.

    Of all the tags and labels for my posts, this is the ONLY category I've complained about. I defy anyone to go to the Jane Austen's World tag and agree with WordPress that the blog that is featured should be sitting on top of that category. Thanks for listening.

    The blog I need help with is janeaustensworld.wordpress.com.

  2. janeaustensworld
    Member

    Well now, I finally see that my ploy worked. But creating that post took a full 2 hours. CRAZY. I still think people should be able to vote for the Featured Blog of their choice.

  3. raincoaster
    Member

    Your post, however, will probably quickly get sandboxed by Google. Getting dumped into the "Spammer" category by Google is far more serious than getting left off Top Posts at WP.com. Delete that post. Seriously, delete that post.

  4. raincoaster
    Member

    People don't vote for Featured Post. They vote for Top Blog. They do so by reading the blogs. Top Blogs, Top Posts, Fastest Growing Blogs, are all determined by hits (subject to getting taken out of the running when staff thinks you've had your fair turn at it; that's happened to me).

  5. raincoaster
    Member

    the Featured Blog in any category is the one that uses that category the most. So if the competition is old, just use the category in the future and you'll quickly outpace them.

  6. thesacredpath
    Member

    If you do a voting thing, then people will round up all their friends, who will mobilize all their friends, and "game" the system. I say absolutely not to voting.

    And as raincoaster says, DELETE THAT POST IMMEDIATELY. If Google finds it and labels you a spammer, then it will take months for you to show back up on their searches (at the very bottom). She knows. She does, and teaches this stuff for a living.

  7. raincoaster
    Member

    And I've gotten my ass smacked by Google for doing exactly that. Seriously, I wish I'd never heard of the Camel Cheese challenge. For eight hours I was #3 on Google for "Camel Cheese", and ever after Google has hated me.

  8. ellaella
    Member

    But I bet Google will let her own her tag Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

    I think refusing to share the algorithm(s) is perfectly reasonable, otherwise some people might try to game the system. *cough*

    In a way, people do vote -- by clicking on over to the sites. When Cheezeburger was #1 all the time, it wasn't from a competition.

  9. thesacredpath
    Member

    Ah yes, the great Camel Cheese experiment of 2007.

  10. thesacredpath
    Member

    By the way, you still come in at #5 on page 1.

  11. feartheseeds
    Member

    Way, way back in 2001 I had a blog that was number one for "midget horseporn"... actually I was the only one. Now there's 341,000.

    I still have posts on my current blog from a couple of years ago which have up to twenty and twenty-five category's and they get very few views from Search Engines... it never really occurred to me it might be because of an overload in categories, but I've (kind of) found over the past few months when I edit them back to fewer than twelve they start getting more traffic.

    "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is a good one...

  12. raincoaster
    Member

    It was also covered in BoingBoing, if memory serves. It certainly was on Buzzfeed.

  13. raincoaster
    Member

    OMG I'm number 5??? I was completely knocked off the front page for a year! Google's a vindictive bugger!

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