Hoodlumman over at File It Under has a great post today that “scientifically” studies the various ways bloggers get linked:

Traffic is the currency of the blogosphere for the 99.9% of bloggers that don’t blog for an actual profit. [emphasis mine] It’s not that most bloggers wouldn’t love to make money, it’s just a matter of supply and demand - and at the moment there’s a bit much supply out there and not enough demand to spread around.

But traffic means other things to the casual bloggers. Status. Prowess. Recognition. Sense of family, obligation, or value to readers. Excitement, not excluding arousal including heightened body temperatures and increased bloodflow… but I digress. I’m sure there are also other meanings that I’m missing.
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In the Blogosphere, there’s no better way to reward a blogger than to steer them some traffic. It’s a cyber version of a high-five, pat on the back, flattering comment or a pinch on the ass.

Quite true. Quite true. Stop reading and go read his entire post. Do.It.Now. You heard me. Don’t make me come over there!

Ok, so you have finished reading his post. What? You didn’t go read it like I told you? What is wrong with you? It’s people like you what cause unrest. Scroll back up and read his post.

Anyway, for the rest of you who follow instructions, I wanted to share my personal experience with blog linkage.

I started blogging because I have a lot of opinions and ideas on how the world should be run. Scary isn’t it? So, I stuck my blog shingle out on the street, started opining and waited for visitors. Problem is, they did not show up. Very frustrating. You begin to realize that you have to get your name out there if you want to be heard. Reading the big dog blogs, I was left wondering how they became so big. After all, some really were not all that special. I mean, they had good points, good links and were updated constantly. But hey, I was doing that too.

At this stage, all bloggers enter into what is commonly known as link whoring. You write a post that you feel will change the world, or at least that you find mildly amusing, and then you send an email to each of the big dog bloggers with your link and a little bit about why they should even care that you exist. Then you sit back and watch the hits roll in….But they don’t. Here you can go one of two ways, you could get pissed off that the big dogs have failed to see the utter genius of your post, so you begin writing nasty flame emails to them or you realize that most of what you write is mediocre crap at best and maybe you should only send in your best of the best posts to the big dogs. I would strongly encourage you to follow the latter course of action. Getting upset and writing flame emails will only get you banned, or a restraining order. After all, if you are ever to make it in the blogosphere, you are going to need links from the big dogs. Torching the bridge between you and them is counter productive at best.

So, you bide your time. News cycles come and go. It is fun to look back at your archives to see what you were writing about months ago and to hopefully see that you have progressed as a writer. Like I said, “hopefully.” Then it comes to you. It could be in the shower, in bed, on the john or just sitting at work staring off into space, but it comes to you. The idea for a truly brilliant post. You hurry to your computer and begin typing away like a monkey hopped up on goofballs. You do not even care about punctuation and spelling. Hell, that is what Word and cut/paste are for. Your fingers and mind become one and you type like some spirit hand is guiding you. The words just spill onto the screen. Then you are done. After spell checking and fixing other errors you finally have a chance to sit back and read your work of art. And it truly is a work of art. Your heart races as you bring up your email program. If you are like me, you have the big dogs as contacts already. Not that they have you in their system, but it just makes it easier instead of having to look up their email each time. You put in big dog #1 with a little background on the post or a snippet of the post and you end it with a statement like, “If you like this post, please pass it along.” Hit send. Then repeat until you send to all the big dogs.

Chances are if you have really written something unique, original, funny, informative or any combination of the two, you will get a link. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. But at least you know you sent your best.

I have had several brushes with “fame” in my 7 months of blogging. There are four or five posts that I have written that were picked up by bigger blogs. Nothing like the Holy Grail of blogging, like getting linked by Instapundit, Michelle Malkin or Powerline, but they were big enough blogs that the hits came rolling in. But in the blogging world, there is no sure fire formula.

Examples:

Betsyspage linked to a post recently. She has linked to me in the past but the traffic I got from this past link was astounding. I just happened to catch a break. She had just finished guest blogging for Michelle Malkin. I got over 500 hits in from that post.

Ken from It Comes In Pints? tossed me a link because I was bitching and moaning about my birthday or something. It was a throw away post for both of us. But you would be shocked at the amount of traffic that one link sent my way. I really think my core readership jumped to where it is today after that link.

The Anchoress picked up my Evil White Male rant. I did not even send her a link. Betsyspage had linked to it, because I sent it to her, then the Anchoress picked it up from her. Tons of traffic.

The Jawa Report tossed me a link early on, though I can not remember which post it was. My traffic was pretty good coming from that link. Although not a huge big dog, Rusty is big enough that if I write anything related to the War on Terror, I send it. Like with all things, most of the time, nothing.

Willisms has been with me since the beginning. He was one of the first to blog roll me. He tossed me a link (number 13) and the cool thing about it is that I did not send it to him. That is one of the best surprises on the internet. You write something. You think it is ok, but you do not send it out. But then a big blog picks is up because they happened upon your site and the liked it. Wow! Someone loves me!

The most recent link I have gotten was with Ace of Spades this past Monday afternoon. Again, it was a throw away link. I thought it was funny and I took a chance and whored it around. Ace picked it up and he gave what is the shining example of an Uber-Funnel Link:

Okay, I Admit It, This Looks Bad: Bush really shouldn’t have posed for this picture.

Who in there right mind is NOT going to click on my link? It was awesome. It also helped that he posted that at 2:45 pm and he did not post again until 9 pm. Having your link, tagged with such a great lead in, being at the top of a big dog blog rocks! Here is my site meter stats for this week. See if you can guess when Ace posted my link. I have received almost 3,000 hits since Monday. Just on that one link.

So what IS the moral of this story? Well, that would be the point I am trying to make! HAHA. Ok, anyway. When you start out blogging, you think your stuff is the work of God himself. Hopefully, as time goes on you realize that a lot of what you write is filler material at best and only 1 or 2 posts a week are really worth reading. Link whoring is a way of life. You have to get your name out there and then you have to keep it there. But do realize that the big dog bloggers get thousands upon thousands of hits a day. Many from bloggers just like you. They also receive a ton of email from said bloggers. My guess is that most of it is not that good, redundant or doesn’t add anything to the discussion. Be patient and send your best stuff. But I do understand. I do. There are many days I read what they link to and grumble that I wrote damn near the same thing two days ago.

Such is life in the blogosphere.