OLD went in search of the missing….

Kieron Donoghue still makes the odd post on his blog, but nowadays he’s playing internet DJ at Sharemyplaylists, eating a lot of afternoon tea, drinking Peroni, and planning his next conference trip to Las Vegas (which involves no conferencing).

Mr Affiliate Podcast Man, Fraser Edwards, is usually at the bottom of a bottle of Red Wine or White Wine. The pressure of affiliate marketing didn’t turn Fraser to drink, they’re just his two fantastic keyword rich sites. And besides, blogging about the vino is perhaps a tad more fun than affiliate marketing.

Whilst Fraser is guzzling back the plonk, fellow affiliate blogger Lee McCoy is stuffing his chops with chocolate. Lee is now a bit of an authority on chocolatey matters and his site Chocolate Reviews demonstrates this. The Times even named it as “Best of the Chocolate Blogs”!

Life might be sweet for Lee, but it’s not so sweet for Plymouth fan John Lamerton at Lammo.net. Hopefully the Argyle will be bouncing back next season. Anyway John’s still doing his Easy Content Units, but surely there must be time for another of his Ask Lammo blogs?

However, Lammo is a hive of blogging activity compared to Clarke Duncan. Clarke reached the pinnacle of his affiliate blogging career with the cleverly titled The Emperor’s New .Co’s. He’s now busy working on Social Enhancer, taking photos and he is also very active on Twitter where he’s a font of profoundness (sometimes).

Also in the affiliate photography club is Frostie. Move over Scott of the Antarctic, Frostie is the David Bailey of the Antarctic. Going further than most affiliates ever dare (out the house is more than enough for most), the intrepid Frostmeister has headed to the 7th continent, and taken some quite stunning photos too.

Staying Down Under (sort of) we find Kirsty McCubbin’s Affiliate Stuff. The good news is that Kirsty is actively blogging again (well two blogs in a week). Hooray! Kirsty has been fighting Google Panda Kung Fu style, analysing her sites and how they’re doing, having a huff (lol) and then popped over to New Zealand for a break.

Also showing some signs of life are David Fiske and Keith Bond. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for Matt Bailey who apparently has said he won’t blog again until Man City win something, that could be next week or a lot longer if Stoke win the cup!.

And finally there’s Woody – poor old Woody! It’s like hair without L’oreal, limp and lifeless. It’s owner seems to have abandoned ship which surely must lead into my next blog – what did happen to that Matthew Wood guy anyway?

Therefore, to enjoy further his exploits in affiliate marketing, before reading Moose on the Loose arm yourself with a shot glass and a bottle of your favourite spirit then settle down to play the drinking game.

Take one shot whenever the following events occur..

1. Paul uses the word pertaining.
2. Paul mentions Spurs.
3. Paul mentions anything to do with Spurs (including players)!
4. Paul uses a long word that makes you stop and think “I wonder what that means” e.g. Rapaciousness!
5. Paul uses a fable, parable or story and makes it about affiliate marketing.
6. Paul uses a metaphor.
7. Paul shows a screen shot of google adwords.
8. Paul shows a picture that’s been altered to feature names of networks or merchants!
9. Paul mentions his ‘good lady’!
10. Paul highlights the same phrase more than twice (e.g. The Naughty Step).
11. Paul uses long descriptions instead of short ones (e.g. a carnivorous annelid worm of the class Hirudinea instead of blood sucking leech).

By this point you may well be very very very drunk, but if not take a shot if Paul has not done any of the above.

Disclaimer: This is a bit of fun only, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, quickly, and blogging is not big and it’s not clever… and Paul, I love your blog and think it deserves it’s own drinking game (is this the first ever affiliate blog drinking game…)!

Firstly what is Technorati Rank?

Technorati Ranking relates to the number of sources that point to a particular weblog relative to other weblogs. The more sources referencing a weblog, the higher the Technorati ranking

For this experiement, the network sites have been ignored and the Dfinitive Ranking based on Alexa is given in brackets – this number has also been adjusted by 8 to remove the networks and Affiliates4U (so your true position on Dfinitive’s chart is the number in brackets plus 8!).

#	Affiliate Blog	Technorati Rank
1	Affiliate Blog	30,370 (2)
2	Kieron	32,046 (1)
3	Dfinitive	53,371 (3)
4	James Little	69,748 (-)
5	Fish and Clicks	93,471 (16)
6	Jess Luthi	78,633 (6)
7	One Little Duck	124,190 (13)
8	Moose on the Loose	130,614 (5)
9	Keith Bond	144,766 (4)
9	Clarke Duncan	144,766 (11)
11	Frostie	148,887 (8)
12	Affiliate Stuff	172,278 (7)
13	Lee McCoy	210,132 (17)
14	Kandevil	256,025 (20)
15	Monetisethis	293,227 (18)
16	Morley Mouse	465,230 (9)
17	Internet Marketing Blogs	539,449 (10)
18	Lammo.net	639,409 (19)
19	Start as an Affiliate	919,191 (15)
20	Existem Blog	994,734 (21)
21	Affiliate Dogma	1,800,751 (22)
21	Stephen Pratley	1,800,751 (-)
23	Niche Marketing	3,908,717 (12)

So is this a better indicator of top affiliate blogs?

Well, as One Little Duck has jumped up quite a bit I’m naturally inclined to say yes (lol), although I guess those that have fallen will probably disagree. Fish and Clicks in 5th place (compared to 16th via Alexa) is perhaps the big winner, whilst Niche Marketing is the main faller. James Little takes 4th after demanding a recount because his blog url is not 3wdl.co.uk, but exwebjunkie.com.

Other than that, it’s much of a muchness in terms of position and probably doesn’t say too much different compared to the Alexa Rankings chart (what an awful conclusion this turned out to be! Note this by no means makes Alexa Ranking a valid statistic!). The main point then: Well, there’s not that much difference between the top two in either chart, and few affiliates in the UK would disagree that Fraser and Kieron are the UK affiliate blog leaders.

But if you’re a newbies to affiliate marketing (or even a long timer) don’t ignore the other blogs. Remember everyone listed above has different affiliate experiences and expertise. That means there’s plenty of help and advice to be gleaned from this vast array of affiliate knowledge!

So far, so good! A legitimate trackback was picked up on test, and no trackback spam has appeared in the moderation area for over an hour. Let’s hope I’ve not spoken too soon though – but if it does it’s job (as it seems to be) then this will be an invaluable plugin.

The only downside is the plugin was last released in May 2006. Also note that there’s an option to “Submit data to the Computer Security Lab at Rice University for research” – I’ve turned this bit off though.

Joining a duck and a fish in the affiliate blog world is a moose in the form of Paul Wheatley who’s blog is at Moose on the Loose. Paul’s rants and raves on affiliate marketing are legendary, so go armed with a cuppa and thesaurus to get the most from his postings. And if that’s not enough reading for you, then Frostie also has started his own affiliate blog too.

With so many affiliate blogs (see the links page) it could be that there’s potential for cross over or “everything’s the same”, but everyone has their own unique styles and different opinions, as well as operating in different ways within the affiliate marketing world. If you have the time it’s well worth keeping an eye on them all!