Getting to know Ratified Australia - Top 100 Blogs

I decided to update this article to give Aussie blogger newbies an idea about Ratified Australia and reflect updates as well.

We only accept blogs to be Ratified
Please note that we only link to the blog home page. If your blog is a sub-page of a website, we will only link to your blog section.

Ranking based on points system
Ratified base its rankings on a point system. The more points, the higher the rank.

Here is the complete formula

(Technorati Authority x .55) + (Pagerank x 125) + (Feedburner x 3.75) + 20000000/Alexa Rank

From Technorati, we gather the number of blogs linking to your site and multiply it by .55. As Technorati can be manipulated, by multiplying it by .55, it is given less importance but still has a fair amount of weight.

Google Pagerank is also factored in. Pagerank can range from 0 to 10. In the formula, it is multiplied by 100, giving it quite a bearing. The higher the Pagerank, the higher chances for a blog to rank higher overall.

Feedburner subscribers per blog are counted. The number of feed subscribers is essential in gauging the success of a blog. We multiply it by 3.75 in the formula. Blog owners must at least activate their feeds' Awareness API in Feedburner for us to effectively pick up their subscriber numbers. In hindsight, we saw that those who enable their Awareness API get much higher ranks than those who don't. For Blogger.com and Blogspot.com users, here's a guide in transitioning your RSS feeds to Feedburner seamlessly. (or you can watch this video I prepared last year)



Ratified creator, Andrew Dela Serna, recently added Alexa in the equation as the entity announced its new scheme where rank is no longer dependent on users of the Alexa toolbar.

New blogs can be "ratified"
The main basis for "ratification" is the Technorati blog links. Once a blog gets at least one link, they are immediately ratified even if the blog doesn't have Pagerank or feed subscribers.

The Ratified program records all the number of blog links and subscribers from data that are readily available through API's.

Updates
When the ranks are updated, the buttons pick up the new ranks automatically.

Next year, 2009, we will be releasing a semi-annual Top 100 report that gives an update on blogs that have achieved growth on a six-months period. We are currently testing this on the main site and look forward doing it on the Australia side next year.