Monday, April 6, 2009

Top 25 Genealogy Blogs for 2009

Remember the Top 40 music surveys from our youth (well, my youth...I'm probably older than most of my readers). I collected them religiously in the early '60s, compiled my own national music survey for awhile, and listened to the radio every day to hear the latest and greatest songs by my favorite "artists." That eventually wore off as other "hobbies" captured my interest (girls came al ittle later).

It's funny - it's not much different today for me - I sample over 450 genealogy blogs every day using Bloglines as I search for genealogy news and research tips, and check genealogy databases for more online data. I hardly have enough time to do my own genealogy research anymore. But who's #1?

If I turned on my radio, would I hear "Hey, we're counting down the top genealogy blogs for 2009 on K-GEN, your favorite station for all things family history."

"Coming in at #3, is Genea-Musings... with genealogy news commentary, software reviews and testing, personal family history articles, and more..."


Wow. I'm genea-smacked. Thank you, ProGenealogists!

Read the whole list. The article was written by Heather Henderson.

What were the counting criteria? After all, this isn't subscriptions sold, or number of links counted. The article says:

"For this study, hundreds of genealogy blogs were evaluated based on their overall content, Technorati rating, and industry experience. Due to the ever-changing nature of the blogosphere and the authority basis of Technorati rankings, it is anticipated that this list will change frequently. Note that Technorati does not list Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (EOGN) as a blog; statistics drawn elsewhere."

I'm glad that they did not use web site hits as the sole metric. So many blogs are read using readers, email subscription, or aggregators.

I have some quibbles with the list, although I don't have the Technorati information on hand. My opinion is that Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter must be #1. It has much higher web site traffic than any other genealogy blog - about 37,000 unique people each month per Quantcast. In addition, Dick sends a regular email subscription newsletter to thousands of readers.

By comparison, Genea-Musings has web site traffic of about 5,400 unique people each month per Quantcast.

The results for Leland Meitzler's GenealogyBlog are skewed because he was offline for five months. Before the feed break, Leland was probably #2 to Dick in genealogy blog traffic and influence. I look for Leland's blog to get a star in the 2010 rankings as he jumps from #22 to the top 3.

Numbers are nice, but I think that writing quality is really the key to great genealogy blogging. In my blog list reading, I see a lot of great writing by bloggers not on the Top 25. This is one reason that I write the Best of the Genea-Blogs each week - to expose great writing and genealogy stories to more readers.

More genealogy blogs pop up all the time - I add 10 to 20 genea-blogs each week to my Bloglines list.

Who will be #1 next year? Who will be the big movers up or down the list? We'll see! Patience...

6 comments:

Leland said...

Randy, you're always so darned nice... I really appreciate all the kind comments you make about GenealogyBlog - and I really do try... But as I see it, you are the hardest worker in the entire genealogy blogging community - and you earned that top-three position. I also give you at least partial credit for the success of many of the genealogy blogs in existence today. Your encouragement to all of us has made a difference. Keep up the wonderful work, my friend. You are appreciated by many.

Sheri Fenley said...

Randy your blog is ALWAYS one of the first stops of my day. I can count on your blog to keep me informed with up to the minute genealogical news. Your reviews and mini tutorials of genealogical software are extemely helpful, especially for those of us who are technology challenged.

Genea-bloggers look forward to Saturday nights and your fun and games. Some may not realize that while we are having the fun and games, each week we are learning new skills or sharpen ones we already have.

You are tops in my book Seaver and I am proud to call you my friend!

Becky Wiseman said...

Congratulations, Randy. You are definitely a "must read" in my book. I especially look forward to your "Best of the Genea-Blogs" each week because no way could I read ALL of the genea-blogs that you do. You almost always lead me to a new and interesting blog.

Bill West said...

Congratulations, Randy!

Steve Danko said...

Congratulations, Randy, on this bit of well-descerved recognition!

Anonymous said...

Stay focused - that's a huge task when so many interesting things keep popping up.Best wishes for your research in 2011.
genealogy research