Blogs fall off Google's Pagerank

Google has tweaked its algorithm again and this time it's bad news for blogs. Spotted this at Fables of the Reconstruction.

"...blogs are only an important phenomenon (important other than for the intrinsic satisfaction of writing) to the extent that search engines prioritize blogs. There are, by my estimate, only about 500,000 people who actively search out political and current events blogs. That number is not likely to grow much; all of the people who are likely to take an active interest have had a chance to join us by now. While not nothing, such a number is quite small in cultural terms. What makes blogging potentially culturally relevant is being indexed by search engines. Until today, if you googled any topic of current interest, the first page of results included blogs. That made blogs relevant to general internet users, but much more importantly, it made blogs vital for journalists researching stories. The prominent placement of blogs in google search results meant that bloggers, rightly or wrongly, were paid attention to. It also meant that blogs occupied valuable internet real estate that attracts advertising revenue.

"Take search engines away, and the entire enterprise dries up. No google hits, no blogs. It's that simple.

"As I said, we'll see how this shakes out."

Indeed, I think the news of the demise of blogs is grossly exaggerated. Blogs will always have some following on the web, no matter how niche, and a continued role in disseminating and critiquing news, no matter what comes along, or whether or not search engines ignore them.