Anyone who writes a blog does a bit of ego surfing now and again. Or even again and again. It’s true, isn’t it? You know, looking for your name on Google and Technorati to see how many mentions you have. Checking your site stats to see who’s linking to you. Et cetera.
Via Krijn Schuurman, I came across Preople – an intriguing-looking web tool that ranks your name based on a complicated calculation on how many times your name is found in a few search engines (according to the FAQ).
The only trouble is, I don’t understand what it means. Take a look at this, which is my Preople ranking based on a one-time visit to the website:
The small print in the graphic says "There are 1,756 names that have a higher Preople Ranking and 16,275 names that have a lower Preople Ranking." Ok, is that a good thing? I guess it is.
But what does it mean? Is it simple to understand and it’s just me who doesn’t get it? Should I pay any attention to this?
I searched for mine and got:
“There are 979 names that have a higher Preople Ranking and 20296 names that have a lower Preople Ranking. If this was your name and you want to work on your rating and end up even higher on the list we suggest you get published, get known, blog, post, link, create, mail, react, reply, connect and write! Get people talking about you…”
So, um, since there are less people higher than me, I’m more popular than you are? Or since there are more aggregate names, I’m less popular? And how do all those other Dave Taylors’ who are hanging on my coattails feel about this overly broad, fairly pointless data analysis (actually, let’s say “analysis” in quotes) exercise? 🙂
Your preople rank is calculated based on how many times your name is mentioned on the web. The message you refer to mentions the unique names in our database. I realise that that message isn;t very clear so I changed it to this:
“There are 3710 names in our database that have a higher Preople Ranking and 19408 names that have a lower Preople Ranking. Your ranking is based on how much people talk about you on the web. If this was your name and you want to work on your rating and end up even higher on the list we suggest you get published, get known, blog, post, link, create, mail, react, reply, connect and write! Getting people to talk about you is the only way to increase your rating…”
Better?
Ego Surfing new tool
Preople. Via Nevon, and no, I don’t understand either how it works Nevon and I don’t think we should pay too much attention to it (answering what Nevon asks).
I did it, and don’t get it either. And let’s face it, with names like Neville Hobson and Susan Getgood, there is no way the search engine is getting confused between us and people with similar names 🙂
Maybe they can explain it????
Preople?
Neville brings a new toy on the table in Ego surfing with people – yeah, I might get it, but I am not interested in it. The toy is boring.
Why? I’ve written about this before: it is easy to bait a blogger. Because you will have a search request via…
Boris, that explanation helps a bit, thanks.
Yet I still don’t see what Preople really does. So I have a Preople ranking of 7,090. In the test I did on the site yesterday, it said 16,275 names have a lower Preople Ranking than I do. Is that 16,275 other Neville Hobsons? Blimey, I never knew of so many!! Or people with similar names? How similar? Or maybe I should pay more attention to the 1,756 names that have a higher Preople Ranking than me.
But as Susan says, I’d find it hard to believe search engines are getting confused with such a name. Which search engines, by the way, does Preople use?
And what about Dave’s point on his ranking?
Sorry, Boris, I just don’t see the point of Preople. Or do I still not understand it?
Broken by design. If I talk about people, I don’t always use the full name.
Many times I don’t even say their first name (see my latest blogposting on ‘the guys’).
I use my name in comments on the web – that is not them talking about me.
And even if you would include an url – which one? I do have 4 blogs and an old homepage plus several additional urls where I activly contribute.
And with all the speaking of the long tail, your graphic misses the basic point of putting people not in the long tail when they are in fact at the top of the tail – people ‘read’ graphics first and not text.
Are There People Who Need Preople?
As if we didn’t have enough tools to check our blego, there’s word from the great European PR blogger, Neville Hobson, of a new service called Preople. He calls Preople