In a post from last week, I made reference to the need for a momentum metric to buffer the standard strength metric that we get in PageRank. If a PR 8 site hasn't been updated in 9 months, and is completely blank, that should be reflected in some publicly accessible data.

My question for this post is how would a momentum metric be best accomplished, taking into account the variety of sites that exist. In the comments section of that post, Phillip gave us a start:

Maybe it could be a rating that combines the separate metrics of today, i.e. this number of percentage points is given to Alexa traffic rank, this for PR, this for the number of Technorati mentions, and so on. The question of who gets the biggest weight in the rating would surely be cause of debate.

So why don't we hack this out in the comment section of this post. Here are the questions to consider:

1. Momentum is a measurement of relative strength over time, and as such requires that we take "snapshots" - what is an ideal frequency of snapshots? One day? One week? One month?

2. To answer question 1, it would help to know the data that we'll be considering in measuring a site's momentum. Afterall, why take a daily snapshot if our data is only updated once a week or once every 3 months for that matter. So what data is relevant? Backlinks? Alexa? Technorati? PageRank?

3. How much weight should each of these data points be given?

If you have some ideas on how this topic, feel free to comment, but for answering these 3 specific questions, I propose the following format:

Once a week

Alexa - 25%
Technorati - 25%
PageRank - 15%
Backlinks - 30%
Delicious Votes - 5%

Here's a PR 8 page: http://www.corante.com/loom/. That page has been dead since June 9. 2006 when the author started writing for a different company, on a new domain.

According to Google, this outdated, non-updated page is more important than The Drudge Report which has a PR 7.

We all know that PageRank is easy to manipulate and a poor reflection of a site's value. We also know that Google has moved on from PageRank to include things like TrustRank, traffic data, etc.

Despite it's low-resolution, ease of manipulation, and inaccurate indication of a site's worth, PageRank continues to capture people's imagination. It drives the economy of Text Link Ads.

Admittedly, I buy and sell PageRank. Less so now then when I first got into the game. But I've always used discretion and have tried to hedge my bets towards sites that are poised for growth, rather than those that are in the process of decline.

In other words, for the savvy text link ad buyer, market pressure actually encourages investment in quality, growing sites, as opposed to sites with artificial PR injection or sites on the decline. That's a virtue of the TLA market in my opinion. The savvy buyers go after legit, growing sites.

Which brings me to another point. There's very little market pressure from AdSense to make quality websites. Not all quality sites translate into high AdSense earnings (many spammy sites make lots of AdSense revenue). On the other hand, any site that is growing and making progress has a product to sell in the TLA market.

But alas, I digress from the main point of this post: we really need a solid, diversified metric to measure a balance between site strength and site momentum. PageRank measures brute link strength. Alexa gives us a rough indication of a site's growth over time, but it's an easily manipulated, one-dimensional metric.

Wouldn't it be great to have a single metric that gave us a realistic picture of the health of any given website? Not just brute link strength(PageRank), and not just an indication of relative traffic (Alexa), but a measure of a site's overall presence, growth and significance *at this moment*?

Today I clicked to my performancing metrics page but I got "Page Not Found". There is something I don't know?
..and this after preview this blog entry. 1970? wow! back to the future.. hehe..