Over the last week or two some things have really gotten me to wondering about how blogging itself has evolved.

In 2005 when I started, bloggers would blog about something and there were brief comments usually left.  What you also had though was a tendency for other bloggers to not just comment on, but to link to that post and write their own post from their own perspective in a lengthier format.  Then THAT post would receive brief comments, and someone would link to THAT and write their own post from their own perspective.  This was the natural blogging ecosystem.

Lately, it seems people are genuinely surprised when this happens.  When this happened, I myself was shocked by their surprise.  Isn’t linking to other blogs and ideas an integral part of blogging?

So I did some research.  I took 10 blogs from my Daily Reads Folder in my Feedreader and looked at their posts from April 1 - April 14 of this year and I counted the links to other blogs.  I excluded internal links, mainstream media, IMDB/Wikipedia type sites, and affiliate links as well as links to that bloggers “other” internet presences whether it be a second blog, a YouTube channel, or a podcast they were a part of.  Now it is important to note that not every blogger counted blogged everyday, but they had a minimum of 7 posts in that time period which would indicate a numerical frequency.

Here are the results:

• There were a total of 62 links over 14 days from 10 bloggers
• The highest number of links from one blogger was 17 for an average of 1.2 links per day
• The lowest number of links from one blogger was 0 for an average of 0 links per day
• The total average was 0.44 links per day

As for myself in comparison over the same time period:

• There was a total of 28 links over 14 days
• My average was 2 links per day

Even in comparison on an individual basis, my linking habits surpassed that of the highest linker by more than 50%.  Even if I subtract the 10 links I did on the Sunday Smorgasboard, I’m still at the top.  In no way am I trying to indicate that I am a linking god but it does make me wonder…

Who killed linking? When did blogging evolve into a seemingly selfish practice?  Am I linking in the dark ages?  Or am I just reading the wrong blogs?