PubSub to Measure Blog Influence by Category

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PubSub is today expected to unleash a new site ranking tool, called LinkRanks, that measures the "strength, persistence, and vitality" of links pointing to and from a given Web site.

Additionally, PubSub has begun an effort to compile lists of influential Weblogs by category, which could be of use to media buyers and planners eager to buy advertising in blogs.

By fiddling with LinkRanks' parameters -- now built into the PubSub engine -- PR types can determine the approximate reach and influence of a particular Web page based on the sites that link to that page, either on a daily basis or over a period of weeks. They can also use it to focus their brand listening on the most influential group of blogs or publications.

Perhaps more interesting for advertisers, PubSub has also launched a series of category-based site rankings it hopes will be of use to online media buyers eager to buy into blogs. Its first roll-out is a "Fashionable Blogs" list which combines a fashion expert's top blog picks with LinkRanks data on those blogs. Several other topic areas will follow, according to PubSub CTO Bob Wyman.

"We've had a fashion reporter from a very large local newspaper essentially put together a list of what she thought were the top fashion blogs and we added a bunch ourselves," he said. "What we do on a daily basis is rank it by the current link rank. So you can see within the world of fashion, who's number one. And if you were an advertiser, you may want to get a hold of that blog, you might want to place an ad. Because she's the one people are linking to."

He added, "We hope to do this in the future with PR blogs, law blogs, marketing blogs, etc., as soon as we can find the domain experts who can maintain those lists."