Monday 19 May 2008

Blogging the Blog 7: Leaving Traces

By chance working on someone else's computer today and not wanting to put in the URL into their system, I search for this blog through Google. Of course they could see what I have been searching for but only if they went out of the way, more lengthy than looking in the URL bar at the top. I was intrigued to see that this blog has been picked up by sites that monitor blogs. 'Clasped in an Iron Hand' seemed to have attracted most attention of these electronic viewers, but other postings such as the one about Chinese bloggers had been scooped into 'Sphereit' which seems to be a system that links blogs to the news stories they feature. I did wonder how the newspapers now pick up on bloggers' views of events. I guess they have their regulars but this no doubt draws their attention to others. Apparently my blog has an Authority rating of 1. I do not know how high the ratings go but I saw one which is rated 14.

Someone else had copied my posting What If? Art 3 into their blog about manipulating images and my Atals of Imaginary Worlds 7 not surprisingly is included in a list of blogs referring to the artist Kim Coles who I referred to in that posting. Another picked me up because I referred to both Aretha Franklin and 'Nessun Dorma' and apparently Aretha sung that song recently.

I have found other Rooksmoor references. There is apparently a Rostra & Rooksmoor gallery in Bath, a shame I missed it when I was in the city in March. Rooksmoor Autumn Tango is also the name of a particular labrador. Of course Rooksmoor itself is in Gloucestershire on the southern side of Stroud, so not that far from Bath, presumably where some of my long-lost relatives came from.

So, it is interesting what I said about blogs getting your ideas out there, though it seems often the only ones paying attention to them is search engines rather than people. It does raise the possibility that someone will stumble over my ideas. Clearly, though references to news items and to particular artists whether painters or singers, is likely to raise your profile a little.

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