The IndiBlogger Popularity Rank

[IndiBlogger is an assembly of blogs from India. By becoming a member, one’s blog is seen and reviewed by other bloggers. Blog’s visibility and credibility is increased by becoming a member. I became a member, too. It was Shikha who told me about IndiBlogger.]

Day before yesterday, 26 October, I received a mail from IndiBlogger that my blog has been ranked 65, which meant 65 points out of 100. Certainly not bad, for a two-month and 14-posts old blog. I patted myself on the shoulder.

I thought, “Good, the IndiRank is not bad at all.”

It was today morning that the idea occurred to me, “What are the ranks of my posts according to popularity, or votes polled?”

Just a curiosity. It was around 10 in the morning. Today being Sunday I thought I have some spare time and let me do this exercise. I logged on to IndiBlogger and to IndiVine. The default setting of the posts is as per popularity – the posts with the highest number of votes come first. I clicked the ‘Offbeat and Personal’ tab, where all my posts appear. The first blog had 687 votes. So I thought to come down to 5, which is the maximum number of votes received for two of my posts, I may have to go up (or down) to may be 1000th rank or more. The tabs have been arranged in such a way that the maximum number of blog posts you can jump is 50.

I started clicking on the last tab. The next set comes, I go to the end and click the last tab. When it was about 500th rank I knew it would certainly go to more than 2000, or maybe even more. When it was 1500, I thought, ‘5000’. When I crossed 5000, I stopped guessing and predicting and even counting. It became mechanical. I click the last tab, the next set opens, I go to the end and again click the last tab. It took about half an hour for me to reach the 10,000th rank.

Enters Jayasree (my wife).

She asked, “What are you doing, clicking and clicking? Sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, sometimes pulling down the bar, what is going on?”

I told her, “I am trying to find out the popularity rank of my blog posts in IndiBlogger.”

She asked, “Oh, so you have got rank, too, in IndiBlogger?”

I said, “Yes”.

She asked, “Oh! So what is your rank?”

I responded, “I am just reaching there. Sit, and I’ll show you.”

She sat beside me watching me clicking, clicking, and again clicking. It was another 20 minutes or so when I had crossed 15,000th rank. 

Jayasree said, “It is Sunday, and I have a lot of work to do.”

She left telling me, “Tell me when you find out your rank.”

She had already reached the kitchen. I shouted, “All right.”

I continued with my Herculian task of reaching up to my rank with 5 votes. I have decided that I will certainly suggest to the IndiBlogger team that they should also have a facility to search in the ascending order, so that it will take only a few clicks for me to reach my rank.

I felt dizzy with clicking, clicking, and pulling the bar repeatedly. I stopped looking at the number of votes or the rank, because I realized my target would not come any sooner. The rank went down (or up, should I say?) to 20,000 and then to 25,000 and still no sight of anywhere reaching my target. It was more than an hour since I started clicking, clicking and clicking. When it crossed 30,000 I thought of quitting. On second thoughts, I decided to carry on. Let me see who wins, the IndiBlogger rank or I. When I crossed 36,000 I had reached posts with six votes. Oh! God. At last. I started going somewhat slow. But, the posts with six votes do not seem to end. Posts with five votes began to appear after rank 39,000. Then I became very slow. It was more than 100 minutes since I started this exercise. I don’t want to quit now, I have to see the end of the task. It was 39,700 and still my blog hadn’t been displayed. 

Jayasree called from the kitchen, “What happened? What is your rank?”

I said, “Just a few minutes, I shall let you know.”

Due to the numbness of my fingers, the next click, instead of the next group tab, went to Log Out. Oh! God! What is happening? What did I do? Please, please, don’t take that command, it was a mistake. Please wait, please wait, I pleaded with the computer.

The computer just logged out! I was stunned.  Maybe a few hundred posts, and I would have been lucky to see my blog posts and their ranks. I just sat in front of the computer as if my mind had gone blank.

Jayasree called from the kitchen. “So, what is your rank? It is two hours since you have been trying to find it out.”

I said, “Just a minute, I am calculating.”

I calculated, at the rate it was going, my posts certainly would have crossed 40,000, may be 41 or 42 thousand. The total number of posts could be around 60,000 or more. I didn’t want to tell her that my popularity rank was more than 40,000 out of 60,000. 

I called out to her and shouted, “It is 18,568 out of 60,000.” And then in a dim voice I added, “Counting from below”.