A first, but failed ;), attempt at making a list of the best wine bloggers (for a wine retailer)

This is one of a series of posts that are looking at the best wine bloggers for a wine retailer to be associated with.

I’ve outlined three steps in making the final list for further analysis.

The first step was to come up with an initial list as I can’t do it for all 500+ wine blogs given the manual nature of this process. I’ve made some initial calls on restricting this by only looking at blogs (see my previous post on wine blogs for more on this).

Also I want this to be objective and transparent, not subjective or using hidden algorithms.

Various sources of lists include:

• Google Blog Search
• Yahoo Directory
• Alexa
• Wine Blog Awards ’10 and ’09
• Cellarer
• Top Wine Blogs
• Food & Wine
• Ala Wine
• Wikio
• blogs.com
• BlogBridge
• Blogged Directory
• Technorati

So let’s step through some of these and you’ll start to see why there isn’t an obvious single list.

Google Blog Search

The evil giant, helpful auntie, sexy celebrity or benevolent dictator (take your pick) Google arguably has the best blog ranking technology.

We have to make a decision about the search term first however. You could sensibly argue for the following:

• wine reviews
• wine tasting
• wine country
• wine
• wine cellar
• wine making
• wine purchase
• wine online
• wine guide
• wine tour
• wine blog
• wine ratings
• wine clubs
• wine reviews and ratings
• boutique wines
• wine in california

All of which are searched for often. I’ve chosen the keyword phrase wine blog (broad search).

The reason for choosing wine blog is that the other searches I’ve tried give poorer results.

They include online wine stores, wineries and wine magazines. Now you could advertise in magazines but for the purposes of this research I’m ignoring magazines (see my previous wine blog post for why).

Here’s the Google Blog Search results for wine blog

Google Blog Search, English, US, Jan 1 to Jun 30, 2010 for the search term: wine blog.

***Page 1 “Related Blogs” see right image :

Wine Blog – http://www.wine-blog.org/
Dr Vino’s wine blog – http://www.drvino.com/
The Blog Wine Cellar – http://www.blogwinecellar.com/
Wine Library TV: Gary Vaynerchuk’s daily wine video blog – http://tv.winelibrary.com/
Another Wine Blog – http://www.anotherwineblog.com/

***Page 1 continues:
Rosnay Organic Blog – http://rosnay.blogspot.com/
Wine Blog Awards – http://wineblogawards.org/
another wine blog – http://www.anotherwineblog.com/
New York Cork Report – http://www.lenndevours.com/
Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog – http://fermentation.typepad.com/fermentation/
Dr Vino’s wine blog – http://www.drvino.com/
Drink Nectar – http://drinknectar.com/
STEVE HEIMOFF| WINE BLOG – http://www.steveheimoff.com/
WHY WINE BLOG – http://www.whywineblog.com/
Spittoon- http://www.spittoon.biz/
Do Bianchi – http://dobianchi.com/
TheDieline.com: Package Design – http://www.thedieline.com/blog/
Wine Blog – http://wine-blog.org/
Vinography: A Wine Blog – http://www.vinography.com/
Red Wine Guide – http://www.red-wine-guide.com/
Wine Blog – http://www.wine-blog.org/
Natalie MacLean’s Free Wine Newsletter – http://www.nataliemaclean.com/rss/feed.xml
Southern Oregon Wine Blog – http://www.southernoregonwineblog.com/
Corked Wine Blog – http://corkedwine.blogspot.com/
WCNY: Central Issues – http://ci.wcny.org/

***Page 2:
Everything Wine – http://www.everythingwine.ca/index.cfm?method=blog.bloglist
Seattle Wine Blog – http://seattlewineblogger.blogspot.com/
Berrys’ Wine Blog – http://bbrblog.com/
The “Iron Chevsky” Wine Blog – http://www.chevsky.com/
CostcoWineBlog.com – Reviews of wines found… – http://costcowineblog.com/
Enobytes Wine Blog – http://enobytes.org/wine_blog/
1 Wine Dude – http://www.1winedude.com/
Yapp Brothers Wine Blog – http://www.yapp.co.uk/blog/
Tempo Toronto – http://tempotoronto.ca/
Las Flores View Point Squirrel Colony (Camp… – http://lasfloressquirrels.wordpress.com/
Wine Peeps – http://winepeeps.com/
John on Wine – a wine blog – http://johnonwine.com/
RJ’s Wine Blog – http://www.rjswineblog.com/
Anthony’s Wine Blog – http://www.winelog.net/blogs/ripple/
Brooklynian.com | Brooklyn Blog and Message Boards – http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/
Cuvée Corner Wine Blog – http://cuveecorner.blogspot.com/
Louisville Juice – http://excellentproj.com/
Oregon Wines Blog – http://www.oregonwinesblog.com/
Tinto y Blanco – http://www.tintoyblanco.com.au/
Helderberg News & Information Blog – http://helderbergbasin.blogspot.com/

Source: Google Blog Search.
Note – I wasn’t signed into my Google account but I was using Chrome (could have some effect on the results due to “personalized search“).

As a check I was looking for these ones:

• Vinography
• Wine Library TV
• Dr Vino
• Fermentation
• The Pour
• 1 Wine Dude
• Winecast
• Jamie Goode’s Wine Blog
• Spittoon
• Veritas in Vino
• The Caveman’s Wine Blog

I didn’t find:

• The Pour
• Jamie Goode’s Wine Blog
• Veritas in Vino
• The Caveman’s Wine Blog

I can explain The Pour, that’s now been folded into Diners Journal at NY Times. Jamie Goode is from the UK so he could arguably be excluded from US search results (I use the &gl=us parameter). I think The Caveman’s Wine Blog has changed root domains which could throw his results. I can’t explain Veritos in Vino which I rate.

So despite it’s reputation Google Blog Search just ain’t enough.

How about Yahoo and Alexa?

Yahoo Directory (sorted by Popularity):
Vinography
Spittoon
The Wine Cask
Pinotblogger
Savor Each Glass
Professor Bainbridge on Wine
Oklahoma Wine News
Winecast
Basic Juice
Élevage Blog
Wine Journal
Shiraz Shiraz Blog
Dr. Vino’s Wine Blog
Winorama
The Caveman’s Wine Blog
Vivi’s Wine Journal
Wine & Vine BC
Winetastic
this heaven gives me migraine
Vinodiversity

Source: Yahoo

Alexa filtered for US and English (linux software blogs removed):
Fermentation
Dr. Vino
Spittoon
Winecast
Wine Library
Wine Spectator Magazine
Jamie Goode’s Wine Blog
Vinography
Wine-review.blogspot.com
Goodwineunder20.blogspot.com
Food & Wine Online
zork.com.au
Basic Juice
torbwine.com
Sommelier India – The Wine Magazine
wine-blog.org
The Caveman’s Wine Blog
secretsommelier.com

Source: Alexa

Still not doing the job, in fact there are some even odder results.

PostRank does a good job

PostRank uses a combination of actual user activity and influence of a site, story, or author. Check out their website for more as it’s an interesting approach.

Their rankings:

Source: PostRank

Still not seeing all the blogs I expected though

What about the big daddy of the blogsphere – Technorati?

May be I’m missing something but I was getting some strange results using the Technorati search facility. Here’s some specific examples:

• Vinography is unranked though present in comparison to DrVino which is ranked well
• searching for wine results in a bunch of unrelated blogs leading the list
• searching for wine blog results in some odd blogs in the top 20 odd results.

So I’m using Google to search Technorati (using the operator site:technorati). In other words I’m using a competing search engine to search a blog search engine – the world can be strange sometimes… And I’m still working on that.

Here’s some other sources

Cellarer: http://www.cellarer.com/best-wine-websites
Top Wine Blogs http://topwineblogs.info/
Food & Wine http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/seven-best-wine-blogs
Ala Wine http://www.alawine.com/wine-blog-rankings.html
Wikio http://www.wikio.com/blogs/top/wine#
blogs.com http://www.blogs.com/topten/a-true-connoisseurs-top-10-wine-blogs/
BlogBridge http://library.blogbridge.com/folder/152-best-wine-blogs
Blogged Directory http://www.blogged.com/directory/family-home/cooking/drinks/alcoholic/wine/?sort=editor_rating&dir=desc

The trouble with many/all these sources is that they are either subjective, are not completely transparent or I’ve read scathing reviews of inaccuracy (e.g. Yahoo Directory and Alexa).

Note bloglines (ask.com) wasn’t working – I think because they’re launching a new beta? One to come back to anyhow.

I’ll do some more work on Technorati and report back to you kind reader.

So what do you think?