As the internet has grown and more people got their own websites, the phenomenon »top list« made it’s way into peoples minds, as a way to boost traffic and get credit for the hard work it was, to create a web site. These top lists were (and still is) simple in many ways - show a small image on your website and make people click it to vote for you. Or it could work in other ways, like analyzing the website traffic etc.
Today most webdesigners and developers look at these top lists thinking that it is a waste of time, while they think back in time remembering the good old days where they played around with frames, gif-animations and top lists themselves. The point, top lists are not in anymore.
The internet has really evolved, it has evolved so much that we are in a 2.0 phase, where everything has to be interactive and use tags instead of categories. Web site directories, top lists, table’s, frames and animated gif’s are history - we are really moving forward!
But in the change from animated-gif-and-tables-web 1.0, to the current tags-tags-and-tags-web 2.0, we haven’t gotten rid of top lists, they have just evolved with the Internet - site ranking. Actually its getting more and more influence on the way the Internet works - take a look at Google’s pagerank - everybody who is a little into search engine optimization knows their sites pagerank, and wants to increase it. Some might say that pagerank isn’t just a »new« top list, but are the systems and ideology not closely related?
Another ranking site we can mention is Alexa. Instead of making people put an image on their websites, the rankings are created by reports from people using the Alexa toolbar.
And then there is the websites that clearly is the top list-evolvers. Take a look at these:
Instead of analysing traffic or letting people vote, the top lists now diggs deeper within the sites structure, deciding what good or bad design, coding or features is. Let us take Silktide sitescore as an example, if you have a link on your website saying »About us« or »Contact us«, the »Experience« rating increases. The same if you have a forum, a download section, a privacy policy, RSS feed, a FAQ etc. All helps increasing your ratings. On Webagogo counts the same, if you have a skip to content link or if you use a flash element (removed now), your sites rating increases.
In addition to this automatic-search-for-features, the top lists also drags in google pageranks, alexa ranking, backlinks (yahoo, msn, google), search engine placements by searching for meta tags, and much more. More to that, Silktide sitescore lets users vote for sites, but instead of voting from an accessibility point of view, people vote sites down, to get their own sites in the top 10.
Since i first saw the Silktide sitescore button on a website, I decided, that I wanted to give myself time to reach a top placement - challenge the system. By optimizing my sites to contain the features Silktide values the most, I quickly made it to the top 10. It was only a matter of time before people started voting me down, and I started the counter-attack, voting me up - today you see my 3 sites within the top, this on #1, webdesignbook.net on #4 and WordPress theme park on #11.
This article is written, only to create debate on the subject(s) and to share my thoughts about the direction the Internet is heading towards. A bunch of unanswered questions:
- Can a company as Silktide decide which features is best for a website, without even looking at the website.
- Is all websites the same?
- Should all websites contain the same features?
- Is tags better than categories?
- Is Alexa rankings reliable in any way?
- Do you like top lists?
- Do you experience a boost in traffic from top lists?
- What is the best way to rate a site?
- …
16 comments
CoXis Says:
After reading this i start with your top list.
I never use this kind of stuff but now i will start.
Thanks for the text.
15/05-2006 | 15:19
dandyna Says:
top lists and rankers are NEVER a waste of time in my experience. With my previous domain dandylicious.it I’ve grown one of the most popoular blog in italy and Google-italy in the little time of ONE MONTH. Well,of course, a couple of semi-naked pictures worked as well :PpP :)
16/05-2006 | 9:51
The undersigned Says:
I believe that top lists at some point can create traffic for your site, but I don’t like the way they more and more manipulates and defines how your site should be build or what they should contain.
All sites are not the same - different content for different sites - different needs …
16/05-2006 | 11:20
The undersigned » Blog Archive » How to rate a webdesign? Says:
[…] In addition to yesterdays post about the site ranking craze, I have been thinking of the best ways to rate web sites. Mainly because I run webdesignbook.net my self, where the plan is to release a book with the 150 best webdesigns. […]
16/05-2006 | 12:42
Barbarian Says:
I happen to own one of the largest (if not the largest) toplist. It is a gaming topsite, and I can tell you - provided you keep the design clean, listen to end users, and try to keep a good handle on cheaters, people will join. As of today, it is over 5 years old, and has sent out over 60,000,000 hits out to sites that have joined (it does over 40k uniques/day).
So - are they evolving? I guess. Are the old established ones losing any ground? Not from the ones I own :)
17/05-2006 | 15:41
The undersigned Says:
Nice to hear from a toplist owner :)
I guess the reason is because you are established already and have run the site for so long - won’t it be a battle for a new toplist to establish it self, if it launched with the »good old« top list features, today?
I think to establish a top list today you simply need to automate some test-runs on site-features and traffic etc, to join the battle? But thats also the direction I am afraid of - top lists deciding which features are good or bad on a website :)
17/05-2006 | 15:52
Barbarian Says:
True to a certain degree. More than anything else, a toplist is about who has joined and who has not. And just like business then, who you know makes the entire difference :)
I can say without ego that I likely have more experience running/opreating topsites than anyone out there (except for maybe porn). We have written three different versions (our evoTopsites is fairly popular), and have run small to large toplists (you may be familiar with BlogTopSites.com).
So - do all these ‘new’ features matter? Imo no. The only big update that has really mattered from the original toplists (pre-2000) and toplists today is the ability to track hits. The problem is that the toplists you have mentioned is that they overcomplicate issues.
I think I am starting to rant … so I will give you one little update we did that made a huge difference: http://www.gamesites200.com/ragnarok/details-127.html In 99.9% of situations, the amount of traffic coming in will be stable. A simple graph can easily point out ’spikes.’
And lastly - first mover advantage is very important. BlogTopSites.com was the first ‘established’ topsites for blogs - we have seen dozens of copycat blog toplists (all incidentally using our exact same software!)
17/05-2006 | 16:20
The undersigned Says:
Thanks for the good explanation, really appreciate you commented on this one.
At a closer thought I think you are right about most - but the richness of features relating to the »becoming a popular« top list, depends on the target group for that specific top list, in my honest opinion. Such as those I mentioned in the post, Silktide etc, they are more minded towards web developers, than eg. your toplist, and therefor might need the extra features to attract visitors and to be able to »join the battle«.
17/05-2006 | 20:37
Barbarian Says:
Good point - web developers are a headache. Because BTS got so big as the first mover (and is so big right now - working on fixing that beast) is why its web design and internet sections get a lot of activity :)
18/05-2006 | 5:42
Barbarian Says:
Oh one thing to add - Silktide is nothing but a way for them to get (a lot) of inbound links. Or ‘link bait’ as it is called these days ;)
18/05-2006 | 5:51
The undersigned Says:
Seems like their tactic worked :)
18/05-2006 | 8:03
Leezig Says:
Earlier this year I posted the following on the MODx forums where Silktide was being discussed:
“There is a review of Silktide’s Sitescore by a Brian Robson to be found here :
http://www.pgts.com.au/pgtsj/pgtsj0412c.html
It offers a comparison of 8 different sites examined by the tool before concluding that Sitescore is “patchy and by no means mature, but it’s a step in the right direction”. ”
With this patchiness in mind, I do use Silktide Sitescore as a basic site auditing tool in the course of my day job which involves grant aid for local business websites; it gives a reasonable overview and flags up areas of concern that can then be followed up manually.
21/11-2006 | 15:41
nakliyat Says:
yes all right
12/02-2007 | 14:43
kemalllaa Says:
evden eve nakliyat
14/02-2007 | 13:03
TIAGO Says:
Barbarian please contact me! I am your user 2304! My account is inactive without no reason, i never broke any rule i never did anything wrong, I’m your customer since july 22, 2006!
What supposed i did to have my account disabled? Please i already sent you more than 5 emails, please.
11/04-2007 | 15:07
Web Dizajn Says:
I think I’ll try with top list-evolvers!
webmaster
Dejan Mincic
19/05-2007 | 19:06
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