BlogCatalog, The Blog Directory Has Evolved.

stumbling in quite late to this post. Rose is my first experience seeing someone vehemently panning BC, though I think I learned a great deal more about Rose than about BC from following this thread.

I also think this one deserves nomination as Longest Running Pissing Contest in a blog comments section.

Great rundown on Blogcatalog, Dane.

Much appreciate. I'm a Newbie to blogging (2 weeks with Blogcatalog). Thus, the comprehensive report on their innerworkings is real helpful to me.

Big thing that astounds me is the search engine reach of BC. Since I listed my profile there I've been amazed at how many categories I can find on Google where I've pushed into the Big 3 front pages. Just 10 hours after I listed with them I was up to the Google Blog Search #2 position on Page 1 for Con Man, a major classification.

Hi Steven, Thanks for visiting. The interesting thing with BUMPzee is that most of the conversations take place on the blogs. BUMPzee members are much more likely to comment on your blog when they get there.

I don't use Blog Catalog nearly as much as I should. I do use Bumpzee a little bit more ofter (and that's how I wound up here).

Hi Mudflation, I would agree that it is well deserved. Blog Catalog does a fine job of providing valuable services to it's members and seeks their input in decisions about improving the site. These two characteristics will see BlogCatalog on a continued path of growth and relevance for a long time to come.

i've been using blog catalog for a while now and i'm glad its finally getting some much deserved positive feedback

Katie, the reason that we change Today's Woman to just donate was because the system was not tracking donations, but of course you new that didn't you?

Funny, I have stats counter and Google Analytics installed and not one person has ever came to my blog through your blog.

You have no backlinks in Google and I hate to burst your bubble, but your blog is not hurting me any.

All of my sites including my blog still gets traffic despite your best efforts.

Most of the searches done for my name comes from you Googling my name.

By the way, thank you for replying here. This just goes to prove further that you follow me around the net.

Dane, please understand that my review is not an attack at BlogCatalog. BlogCatalog does have it's place in the blogosphere and many bloggers do find the site beneficial. In my opinion though I do believe that they are too similar to MBL and there are a few changes that many people would like seen done with the community. One is the fact regarding BC not passing on pagerank. I think it is important for them to take in the negative reviews as well as the positive and work from there. Thank you for allowing me to share my opinions on here and BC members are more than welcome to voice their opinions on my blog. You and I will never come to an agreement here and that's ok too. :)

Excellent article and even though I am not a member of any of these groups YET, you pointed out some good things. I am sorry, but not surprised to see that you ended up with comments that became ugly and flaming, but that is just the nature of the Rose. My opinion of copycat is even if this is true SO WHAT! Ideas are grown and matured from other ideas. In the long run, that is what makes the world go round. Now, I don't believe in copying word for word what anyone says, but I have to admit all though my life I did things as I saw that it was successful for others, and then implemented my own ideas to go with it. Over a year ago I wrote a blog on copycats. http://yngathrrt.blogspot.com/2006/03/copycatcopycat-what-is-all-this-fu...

Now Rose, this is directed at you. I know I said I would not blog about you anymore, and will not. And Dane, if you would like to delete this comment, I understand. Rose, Today's Woman is not successful, but it did have the opportunity to be at one time. Your membership has dropped from over 1,000 it was at one point to about 650 now. You use to have a monthly goal of $250.00 that did not even get a dime for at least 2 months, so therefore you have changed it to Support Today's Woman. Can't say that I blame you for doing that, as it must have been somewhat embarrassing for all the members to see nothing there, and they were not going to donate either. You blew your chance o having TW successful as you are all over the internet making problems for people to fill your own need for attention. How sad for you.

Many people already know (even those not a member at BC) that this all started due to them not bowing down to you and making their TOS only to fit your needs. And when that was over, and they banned you, you just had to dream up a new way to cause trouble for them by saying they were a copycat site.

Now, rule of thumb for everyone who reads this. When Rose says she is not going to comment anymore, just take that as a given that she will comment. This happens over and over again everywhere with her. She just cannot tolerate the fact that she did not have the last redundancy reply. Again, great post, and this is my only and last reply. http://cyberstalkers.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html Katie

PS, BTW Rose, I have gotten a great deal of hits to my blogs, as it appears everyone is googling you, or placing links to my blogs concerning your behavior all over the place.

Dane, from an SEO stand point BlogCatalog passes on '0' Pagerank. They use Onclick Java which does not pass on PageRank. They also use nofollow in their RSS feeds.

Thanx Dane for clearing my mind

Hi MrDoubts,

Thanks for stopping by. I say that MBL is visit and stats focused is because of two primary things. First is the way they promote themselves through the offering of their stats tracking capabilities. Second is simply the layout and paths through the site focus on visits rather than discussions, ratings, reviews or any of the other potential options they could have gone with. Please understand that I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Also of the three MBL is the one I have the least experience with, which is why I have not reviewed it at all yet. I am actually thinking of asking a friend to do a guest post reviewing MBL.

Now I understand what you are saying with "Do we need two Wikipedias or two White Houses?", but I would submit that the more appropriate question would be "do we need Ford and Chevey" or "do we need FedEx and UPS". When you re-frame the question this way I think you have a truer perspective. Also I would point out the number of people just in the comments here who have declared a strong preference or even exclusive use of just one of the services.

I would not outright recommend joining all three. In fact I tell people to pick the one that feels like home and concentrate on it. That said there are advantages to blonging to all three as well.

I was referring to Todays-Woman.net when I said a successful site, but thank you for jumping to conclusions.

BloggerTalk.net has only been in operation a short time and is far from being successful -yet.

Blogcatalog is not a blogging community. Blogcatalog was a directory that the new owners change into a network copying most of Mybloglog features. So what they have discussion area- so does BlogFlux.

BlogCatalog was already well established with 60,000 visits a month, a PageRank of 7 and monthly revenue of $1725 when it was sold to Antony Berkman on Sitepoint for $40000.

Again they have no ideas of their own.

Correction- I never asked to moderate bloggertalk.com Mike just made me a moderator. At that time I was already considering opening my own blogging forum when Bob the previous owner of bloggertalk.net said that I could take over ownership of both bloggingfusion.com and bloggertalk.net. I did and I was still willing to be apart of the bloggertalk.com community as well. But Mike did not want things that way. The rest is history and really none of your business, but to imply that I opened a community with the same name for some kind of vendetta is observe and I think you are getting way off the topic here which is blogcatalog.

The topic is not about me, my communities or anything else.

The topic is BlogCatalog.

I'm not going to argue with you further here as today is Sept 11th and I think there are more important things we could all reflect on.

Let me check. Nope i still possess the power of speech. No dumbness, thanks for your concern. The fact is that wether you made a purchase or not you thought it would be good to own a resource with the same name as one for which you had previously moderated. That isn't original either way, nor is any other aspect of the site.

I guess I was thrown of when you said I should put my link in you blog directory. Having other things on site as well does not change the fact that there is a directory there does it.

The first thing every page of my blog does is log the referrer for the visit. This is done through PHP, not javascript. I have recorded three hits from your directory, another two from your forum and one from an admin interface. Lets say that the script only records referrals when it's in the mood. That still puts 3 times as much traffic from th "faling BC" as from your "successful site".

Ummmm.... BC isn't a blogging community? It hasn't a forum? Are you IN this conversation?

Sir as you used it is not a sign of respect, and I've earned more respect in my life than you can comprehend, but still prefer not to be called sir.

No, I act like I care about the place. Because do care about the place.

Correct. Since there is a contrarian view to mine, and since it has a sponsor of one, I linked to it at that one place for my readers to consider.

Paying a site money does not guarantee that their visitors will click on your links. This is why banner ads are no longer so popular. Again the author (and you it seems), understand less about advertising than you imagine.

You may say what you like (without expletives) about or to me. You may not do the same with other commenters to this blog. The last paragraph of your last comment has been removed.

Hi,
How can you say that “MyBlogLog is stats and visit focused”?
Anyways,

Answer me one simple question – if you please:

Do we need two Wikipedias or two White Houses?

Just move around MBL and BC, you will find most of the active members out there are almost same…

If we judge from a user’s perspective – what we get from a combination of the both (MBL + BC)?

Well, the term is, but the reality it described wasn't, kind of like Yankee.

Yes, that's a good approach in my book, though I think BUMPzee just needs time. The site structure and concept are sound, it just needs to build more members and more action.

I still say carpet bagger is a derogatory term... :)

Good review, I have to say that I have joined all three sites talked about in the blog and blogcatalog is the only one that I care to check regularly. I enjoy the discussions there and I have found some great blogs to read as well as finding readers for my own blogs. Which is really what you want out of a site like that. I can't say the same for mybloglog and bumpzee, in fact I think bumpzee is kind of a waste of time.

A little FYI for you- Blogger Talk was obtained from a moderater of the other blogger Talk forum which you can find a copy of on Bloggertalk.com. I did not create the name- I just took over ownership of bloggertalk.net. I even told you that on Bumpzee. How quick you forget.

Just like Tony purchased Blog Catalog. Don't you feel dumb?

Where is the difference there?

Three clicks? Aren't we full of crap and a little liar. You received 19. Would you like a screen cap as I just took one before I deleted your link. Furthermore we are not a blogging directory like BlogCatalog claims to be.

Bloggers can easily see on our site that the links are set up to redirect. It is just a way for members of our community to submit their blog. Again it is not a directory.

We are a blogging community and forum. A different market all together. How could you compare the two? Duh again!

WordPress Tips and News, Themes and Plugins
Description: Blog Strokes Provides practical how to tips and tricks as well as news for WordPress Bloggers. Come learn to build a better WordPress blog, and if you don't see an answer to your question, just ask!
Added on: 27-Jul-2007 Hits: 19
Rate this Site
Category: Blogging Tips

Ps- A sir you are not. A sir is a sign of respect and you don't deserve that.

PSS- AS for Bumpzee - you do act like you run the place.

PSS- NO you don't comment on my blog- you just link to it.

One more thing 19 hits is a lot different than 1 hit for a sponsored listing here. The guy paid for a sponsor listing and got one hit.

ender,

This happened to me once too. tried for a week to figure it out. I sent in an email, and a day or three later they sent one back saying that my account was working and indeed it was.

happily anonymous, my advice is often to simply pick the one that feels like home, and work with it. The community aspects of these sites far out wiegh all of the geeky considerations many of us try to factor in.

i tried to log in to mybloglog ... and all it will ever give me is the login page. tells me i logged in, and throws me back to the login page. they might be a really good site, but i'll never know ... i don't have the energy or time to solve their lack of programming skills. ah well.

blogcatalog is interesting to me. i enjoy many of the discussions.

but, since the demise of the traffic exchanges, i really don't expect any single site to deliver tons of traffic to me. i'm not sure that form of catalog/site exists ... or should. interesting article and fascinating comments. :)

I've been very happy with blogcatalog. I haven't looked at the other two sites you've mentioned. They may be great sites as well but since I've joined bc I'm content with just hanging there for now. And as a bonus it has increased my blog traffic significantly.

Once again, you simply repeat that it's a fact because you say it is and, oh some others say so too. But several people have pointed out differences. Several people have answered your assertions, and you ignore them and repeat yourself. It's tiring.

Oh, I don't know, how pathetic are the three clicks I've gotten from your directory, two of which were mine?and in an eighth of the time I've received more than 10 times that from BC. Not all sites are a good match for links from all other sites. Apparently your blogging resource site isn't very good for traffic to blogging blogs and BC isn't a very good source for traffic to celeb sites. Hmmmm... Nah, that couldn't be. Has to be that BC doesn't send anyone traffic, but just tricked my scripts into thinking they had, because they are a clone, whereas your site is a 100% original conception that sent me a hoard of magic undetectable traffic. Even the name isn't copied from a forum you used to be a moderator on.

You simply do not understand these links they are not "java", nor are they javascript. You are in point of fact, wrong. They are normal HTML link with an onclick attribute that executes some javascript when the link is clicked. Your links, on the other hand are redirects that pass nothing on to the linked site at all. I notice you skipped over an explanation for that. In reality you are doing what you accuse BC of, and they are not.

Only you could possibly draw any kind of idea that I "pretend to run the place" at BUMPzee. Apparently rationality isn't high on the priority list.

You've seen my pic. I'm not a sir, in your sarcastic sense or any other. And I've not been posting to your blog, so if your time is wasted you have yourself to thank.

But, that's okay, you're welcome to the traffic, you've paid it back in spades being an instructional instrument for people following this.

This is not only my opinion, but several others too and they have commented on that. I have a successful site and I did not get there by copying another site or taking short cuts.

ns4w.org advertised on BlogCatalog and got one hit. It was his own. How sad and pathetic is that.

With regards to doubts the links do not pass on Pagerank. They are Java on click.

AS for my opinion being challenged now that I know who you are- You sir are a waste of my time. Should you not be over at Bumpzee pretending you run the place?

Good day and thanks for the traffic. Nothing like free advertising.

Rose,

It isn't really necessary to quote my own post to me on the page I wrote it. I know exactly what I said.

You keep saying "it's a clone". But the simple fact is that it is only a clone in your mind because you so desperately want it to be. Simply repeating yourself again and again, not only won't make it so, but won't convince anyone who's already heard you say it. So unless you have something new to say...

Yes, of course, most site experience growth and traffic increases by copying other sites. C'mon Rose, you know better than that if you put your emotional investment aside for a moment.

The only thing that the post at ns4w.org demonstrates is that the person posting there does not fully understand advertising. A lot of people put up a lot of ads and see returns and a lot of other people put up ads in the same places and don't. I know that I receive quite a bit of traffic from my BlogCatalog listing and I haven't paid a dime for it.

In the moredoubts post, you are again grasping at straws. Look at the source code and you will instantly see that BC links are indexable, followable and track able, unlike links in your own directory which ARE redirects and do not give PR or link pop.
I can't help it if people commenting on the post don't understand what they are seeing or what they are saying.

The only thing on the page that refers to similarities between BC and MBL is talking about the widgets on blogs, which the members skin to fit their blogs. It kind of makes sense they would appear similar, huh?

I never said they were a highly sensitive group of new age counselors. I said they were running a highly evolved directory. And they are. If you can't see that, it's because you have chosen not to.

You keep saying you have nothing more to say, but then you come back and repeat yourself. You are welcome to express you opinion, but if you do so on my blogs prepare to see it challenged.

Claire and MeghnaK, thanks for stopping by and thanks for dropping a quick comment. Look forward to seeing you on the boards and on the blogs. ;)

First of all your original post states "BlogCatalog is a highly evolved blog directory. In a field of tens of thousands they stand alone, and in a field of three they stand strong."

You linked to my original post regarding if Blog Catalog was a clone of Mybloglog.

Not only are they clone, but the way the administrator acted in my case was most unethical and if you use Google you will fine I'm not the only one complaining.

One posts asks........

"Does anybody know what happened with blogcatalog.com? According to Alexa, its traffix shut up exponentially since the site changed hands early this year for $40000. I wonder what changes have the new owners made to it."

Simple, they are copying other sites and failing.

I linked to ns4w.org because it is very relevant to this post. You makes claims that they are a highly evolved blog directory, yet ns4w.org is claiming that they were taken advantage of by BlogCatalog. I don't know if they were or not, but I believe it was important to point out as I know until recently one was not benefiting from submitting to the directory as pointed out here......

How about the comments in this thread regarding links and blogcatalog still looking identical.

http://moredoubts.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/blogcatalog-is-not-what-it-sh...

I linked to my post about how I was treated because again you claim they are a highly evolved blog directory. Well a highly evolved directly does not treat members that way.

I have nothing more to say. If you are going to link to my content then be prepared to hear my opinion on it.

I totally agree that BC is THE bloggers' favorite and it rocks. It's got a live community.

I thought you did a great job with the review.
BlogCatalog is my favourite by a long way :)

Thanks for coming by and for your comments, morinn and Crystal. I have to admit that I'm a BUMPzee fan too, but yes, BlogCatalog is an awesome site for blog promotion.

Great posts. You hit the nail on the head. I think blog catalog is 10x better than my blog log or bumpzee

That was very well written and informative Dane! I've got nothing more to add except "BC ROCKS!" ! :D

That's the key to any of these sites, Cindy. Through communicating (or even just reading) the other members people are exposed to connections that simply wouldn't have existed otherwise.

Interesting read. I have been a member of BlogCatalog for a while but just recently became active. I have enjoyed some benefits from my participation and have found some interesting blogs that I won't have normally had the opportunity to read.

I can honestly say I've never been to ns4w.org until about two minutes ago. I'm not sure what relevance you believe it has to your assertion that BlogCatalog is a clone of MyBlogLog.

Unless you now propose to abandon that and argue instead that BlogCatalog is accurately portrayed as a scam operation in that post I'm not sure why you linked to it. If that is case I have to also wonder if you feel they copied that from MBL, or if it was their own original idea.

In any case the logical problems contained in the post made at ns4w.org that you reference are huge and are also not relevant to this post.

As to the other post, I could only find references to the things that were said posted by you, but since they were not denied, I assume them to be accurate. I understand there is some emotional pain involved for you, and I, not even being active at BC at the time feel compelled to express some sympathy toward you for being the recipient of such a mean spirited attack as you describe.

Still, they are not relevant to whether or not BC is a clone of MBL, which was what I understood your point to be when you commented, and is the point I linked to your blog to reference.

I would like to keep this discussion on topic. I don't have a problem discussing the other things, but lets put the first issue to bed before we add the second and third.

Dane by chance have you seen this.

http://ns4w.org/blogcatalogcom-scam-dont-waste-your-time/

By all means here is the link I was referring to.

http://rosedesrochers.todays-woman.net/2007/07/25/blogcatalog-community-...

This is an excellent point, Denise. A blog community needs to be simple and as intuitive as possible, or many bloggers, who are not into this for the joys of installing PHP will be turned off.

We tend to think that all bloggers are just going to be super savvy and work their way through complex systems, but the fact is that they come from many backgrounds, and many of them blog because it is an outlet for their passions. People who look for stuff to blog about because they want to try a new kind of blog are actually the small minority.

And, I'll go ahead and confess to being in the group that doesn't quite 'get' MBL. But then MBL is primarily about the stats, and I have my own stats tracking, that along with Google's Analytics serve me well.

Well, I don't know who copied who, but I am a member at all three and more, and I prefer BC's way of doing things, their layout, navigation, community, etc. I have heard many people say that they can't figure out how to "use" MBL - you shouldn't have to "figure out" how to use something that's supposed to be simple. If your users are struggling, then something needs to be reevaluated.

Great article!

I believe that I not only acknowledged, but even provided a link for my readers to explore the contrarian view. If you feel that other posts of yours should be included for consideration feel free to post them here. If SK flags the post for too many links, let me know and I'll manually approve it.

I have to disagree here. You should read my other posts regarding Blogcatalog. Blogcatalog copies Mybloglog's every move. So they added discussions. I wonder where they copied that idea. Oh never mind, I already know.

I was trying to figure that out while you were posting this, Andy. Turns out I left a " out at the end of the link title in the first word of the first paragraph, so everything but the last three words got lost. Fixed now.

I'll look forward to that email. I haven't tried playing with it yet myself, but it's on the agenda.

Dane you have some confusing links at the top ;)

I will need to email you a link to what I have been doing dabbling with the API.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment, Tony.

I have to say I appreciate your teams commitment to the community and the methods you sue to approach administering it. I know when I first started posting with any real frequency, the easy thing would have been to shut me down, as a couple members would have liked to see. It's encouraging to see you guys working through things with your members in mind and with your members.

The concept of creating an atmosphere that sends loyal readers to blogs as opposed to "one click visitors" is awesome. It's so easy and so prevalent to go for the quick and the easy, but down the road people realize that they really haven't built anything. I enjoy meeting someone who wants to take the time and effort to go the harder, but more profitable route.

Kudos to the whole team.

Dan, thanks for your review of BlogCatalog.

You are dead on with what you say. And while the directory is the foundation of blogcatalog, what drives our decisions is a focus on strengthening the community and learning from the community and making decisions based on what the blogcatalog community values.

It is so easy to take the route of least resistance. What I mean is that it would be fairly easy for us to focus on just driving traffic to blogs. While a valuable endeavour, and something that would result in blogcatalog getting more bloggers and buzz, there clearly is a major difference between a "one click visitor" and a loyal blog visitor.

The BlogCatalog team really wants to send bloggers loyal readers and not one click visitors. A strong community does this.

So whenever we make a a decision we ask the question: "What will strengthen the BlogCatalog community?"

To answer the question we focus on whether a feature will result in members (i) communicating more, (ii) building deeper connections, (iii) learning and growing (iv) having a sense that when they visit blogcatalog their time is being used in a valuable way.

The result so far has been that the blogcatalog community has a strong core of really amazing bloggers who care about each other, the community and their blogs.