18 November 2006

OK, Here's the deal:

A Dictum from the Blog Boss
by Phil Johnson



  • There will be no BlogSpotting post this weekend, because I've been too busy feverishly answering comments in the "Dead Horse" thread.
  • That thread has now gone well over 300 comments in just three days' time. I've tried to answer every point and every question directed at me by those who favor no-lordship evangelism, including several marginal ones. But the argument has now de-volved to the point where it's being suggested (quite seriously, I think) that perhaps my contempt for no-lordship doctrine is a cover for my hatred of Texas.
  • In point of fact, I love Texas (as much as a born-and-bred Okie is capable of "loving" a foreign country.) I even cheer for Texas when their football teams play OU. Of course, when it's OSU, I like to see Texas get thrashed, but that happens so rarely no one can legitimately hold it against me.
  • Anyway, if the number of comments in that thread hits 400, I'm going to shut it down. So the no-lordship people should not waste comments. It would be best if you could strategically summon your best writers with their best arguments and have them finish out that thread—because (to be honest) so far, here's what it looks to all of us who are not hard-core Zanies: You guys got nuthin'.
Phil's signature
PS: I've said before that I don't really pay close attention to blog stats, and I usually don't. But I do check these things sometimes, and I did some checking today at The Truth Laid Bear.

So what's up with the "Blogdom of God" rankings? (I hate that name. It sounds flippant and blasphemous to me. I'll abbreviate it henceforth.)

Check this out: Here's the stats on a blog called "Reformed Chicks Blabbing." TTLB has them ranked in the top ten "Blogdom" sites. Anyway, the Reformed chicks keep the same kind of hit counter we have. They reset their counter a couple of weeks after we started. It's managed to rack up about .43 percent of the number of hits we have on our counter. (Note: That's point four three, less than half of one percent; not forty-three percent.) The Chicks' daily average visits currently number 81 (though, to be fair, they jumped to around 130 last week). Compare that with our daily average, now at 2,500 (and we've consistently hosted over 2,000 visitors per day for many weeks). Yet the Chicks are ranked 10th to our 87th.

So how does that work? Turns out we're ranked by "incoming links," and TTLB shows only 437 of them for TeamPyro (even though Technorati currently credits us with 2,731 695).

I've been saying for a long time that I suspect TTLB is way off. Now I'm sure of it.

PPS: I just found a link to a radio show I taped a couple of weeks ago. This was broadcast while I was in Mexico last Saturday. I haven't even had a chance to listen to it yet. Hope it's good.


20 comments:

Rose~ said...

What do you think about those Democrats? Before elections are over they claim victory.
It is a psychological strategy ... and it works sometimes ... in two ways that I can think of:
1. It encourages and convinces their base (and the media - same thing?) that they have won.
2. It discourages the opposition from insisting that a "victory" of 1200 or so votes needs a recount.
;~)

Have a good Sunday.

Anonymous said...

Phil,

I moved from Ohio to Texas when Christ became my Lord. I met and married my wife in Texas, and lived and grew in my faith in Texas.

My point?

I deplore Texas, though the people were very nice. I hated the weather. It wasnt very seasonal, nor kind, but rather harsh and dry.

My wife is slowly being accustomed to a slow migration north, as we have been in school in Berea, Ky for a year now.

Sorry Texas, I dont like you.

Nor "non" Lordship.

Thank You Phil for the great articles.

Jim Crigler said...

Re: Phil's comment about Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections: It's a fine book. It also speaks very well to the question of whether Christians ought to seek private messages from God.

Well, ain't that dandy!?! Phil, is that a subject we can rejoin w.r.t. ard, Blackaby, et al. (without the cessationist debate taking over again)? It has been about a year ...

S.G. said...

I gotta admit it. I love pyromaniacs. Youse guys are very, very good. Of course you're speakin' my language too.

You guys love a good fight doncha! Kinda like the apostle Paul but you're taller, heftier and less Jewish.

Hooray for team pyro!

LeeC said...

Two words.

Boomer

Sooner


<- Born & bred in Norman

Even So... said...

I've been saying for a long time that I suspect TTLB is way off. Now I'm sure of it.

yep...

Carla Rolfe said...

"I've been saying for a long time that I suspect TTLB is way off. Now I'm sure of it."

Had to give that one a hearty nod in the affirmative. I removed their ranking from my blog a long time ago. Even though I enjoy stats, I don't enjoy ones that seem unfair, or unrealistic - they just annoy me.

I was in Texas once, but I was too little to know if I liked it or not. I know there are some great folks down there, however.

:o)

michele said...

TTLB only looks at who is registered at TTLB which for us would be 1,079 links (I own a 450 member blogroll and I recommend to the women who join it that they join TTLB so that we can all experience the benefit of a higher ranking -- everyone in my blogroll is currently at an Adorable Little Rodent rank). That puts us at a Playful Primate level with a rank of 52. You have 439 blogs which are registered at TTLB linked to you and gives you a rank of 370 which is a Large Mammal. We have more links than you do, so that gives us a higher rank.

And you aren't reading your Technorati rank correctly, you might want to check that again because you are linked to by 695 blogs with 2,731 links (some blogs are linking to you more than once). Your Technorati rank is 2,664.

We have 4,621 links from 1,688 blogs which gives us a raking of 509 (and this will make you feel worse, I have a second blog that gets even less traffic and it is ranked at 1,111 with a TTLB rank of 220).

So, though we don't get many hits, we are well connected :-)

Google, Technorati, and many of the major search engines don't rank pages by hits, they rank them by links. TTLB is just doing the same thing.

And that may not seem fair to you but that's the way it is which is helpful to little blogs just starting out, we can be noticed by the big and important Phil Johnson :-)

Even So... said...

It (TTLB) still misses things...it never did once give me link score for at least a dozen links I had gotten, yeah I know they changed the format as to how they score, but they don't even count them at all, incoming or outgoing, I experimented to see what would happen, and the outgoing never showed up. It even misses several that are "permanently" linked, as in blogroll, not within posts, and I know of several blogs who are registered that never have gotten a ranking at all, even after 6 months or more, and they take weeks to recover, I am not sure they "see" me at all....need I go on?

Phil Johnson said...

Michelle: Thanks for the insight, and thanks for 'splainin' Technorati to me. I'm pretty mystified by it all.

But there's no way I'll ever have a 450-member blogroll. I can't even manage the links I've got.

Anyway it's nice for us to be noticed by one of the top-ten blogs. Thanks.

Connie said...

LOVE the OSU graphic--my husband and I meet there!! How 'bout making THAT into a sticker to go with my Pyromaniac sticker that arrived in the mail today?

Certainly have enjoyed ALL the recent discussion on Lordship/non-Lordship. I honestly thought it was a dead horse, too!

Keep pressing on TeamPyro--we're listening and you're helping us to think more deeply.

4given said...

(I'm a Texan and my husband was born and raised in Oklahoma... and we met in Arkansas.)

Glue... that was funny.

michele said...

Even so, email them and they will fix it. They won't reply but they'll fix it. The women take a while to register when I add them to my blogroll, sometimes as long as two weeks. I guess it takes a while for the software to work through all the links.

And Phil, I'm happy to help. And it isn't easy managing a blogroll of 450 blogs when you are also managing 3 blogs and a home and going to seminary at the same time.

BTW, I checked the Blogdom of God and it does say that the members are "ranked by links from all blogs." No mention of hits ;-)

FX Turk said...

Oh brother -- Phil, I was noticing that about two weeks ago, the TTLB thing. It's almost totally worthless. If one joins the right aggregators, one can get into the top 100 godblogs (notice the caps) in no time flat.

Technorati is, by far, a better measure of what's going on with a blog. We like NZ Bear and all, but his rankings have been gamed to death.

FX Turk said...

BTW, Tex -- I hate Texas, but only since you moved there.

DJP said...

Rose, what I notice about Democrats is that they (as a party) never, ever learn anything.

They still speak of the 2000 election as "stolen." How many times were those ballots recounted? Lots. How many times did credible counters make Gore the winner? Last count I heard: zero.

But they still want to argue. Like the folks who have come by here, wanting to revisit the doctrine of the Trinity, hoping to paint it as an ongoing open discussion rather than a done deal.

They never, ever learn -- because they just don't want to. "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

So it's up to responsible grownups to get educated, learn, accept the truth, recognize a done argument as a done argument, and move on.

Unknown said...

If the Scriptures were on your side you'd be willing to delve into them in a venue that facilitated serious thought. As it is you make clear your preference for summary and chutzpah.

Blessings.

Phil Johnson said...

H K Flynn: "If the Scriptures were on your side you'd be willing to delve into them in a venue that facilitated serious thought."

...a rather ironic thing for a drive-by commenter to say, hard on the heels of a 400-comment open forum where every single question and every single point against our position was answered, but where those on the no-lordship side had to be constantly challenged to reply to points and questions—and still they refused to do so..

Ah, well.

Phil Johnson said...

Texpresby: "Did you ever read Mike Horton's 'Christ the Lord; the Reformation and Lordship salvation'?"

I answered that question in the 410-comment marathon three posts below this one. Just open that page and do a search for "Horton." You should find it.

C.T. Lillies said...

Cool Graphic Phil.

I pretty much root for OSU and anyone who's playing OU with the possible exception of Kansas.

Go Pokes!

Josh
"...the word of God is not bound."--2 Timothy 2:9