Faculty Blogs and Influence: The Top 50 Most Influential Law Blogs (In Order) (Part 7)

We have been discussing the growing influence of law faculty blogs, a topic examined in my paper, Of Empires, Independents, and Captives : Law Blogging, Law Scholarship, and Law School Rankings. We have already examined the growing number of blog citations in law review articles and in court opinions and the impact on SSRN downloads.  We have opted to include one last post, a ranking, determined by this blog, of the most influential law faculty blogs. 

As anyone concerned about blog rankings knows, there is no single metric for ranking the popularity and/or influence of blogs, much less law blogs.  There are two principle ways of ranking blogs:  traffic (which is not a term with automatic meaning) and through the number of links to a page.  Links has generally been used as sign of influence.  Two ranking systems, Google (Page Rank) and Technorati (www.technorati.com) rely mostly on links.  Justia relies on traffic although it assesses traffic largely from the results of its own search engine.  In addition, a number of blogs have a site meter or were willing to provide internal traffic data.  Finally, with respect to law faculty blogs, influence can be seen from the number of court and law review citations. 

This system, therefore, ranks law faculty blogs based upon traffic, links, and citations.  For each category, blogs were assigned a score, generally 1-10, with the lowest signifying the best performance.  For those blogs that did not have data (some did not have site meters and others were not ranked in Technorati), they were given the lowest score in that particular category.  As a result, the ranking probably understates their "influence". 

This is a first effort, with greater refinement expected over time.  So here you have it.  The Race to the Bottom Top 50 Most Influential Law Facult Blogs for 2007.  

1. Volokh Conspiracy

2. Sentencing Law and Policy

3. Jurist- Paper Chase

4. Instapundit.com

5. Balkanization

6. Concurring Opinions

7. Hugh Hewitt's Townhall Blog

8. Prawfs Blawg-Rank

8. TaxProf Blog

8.  ProfessorBainbridge.com

11. Conglomerate

11. Patently O

13. White Collar Crime Prof Blog

14. LessigBlog

14. Technology and Marketing Law Blog

14. Althouse

17. Discourse.net

17. Workplace Prof Blog

19. Feminist Law Professors

19.  Opinio Juris 21. Religionclause

21. Jack Bog's Blog

21. Immigration Prof Blog

21. Ideoblog

21. Racetothebottom

26. Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

26. Mirror of Justice

26. Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog

29. 43(B) log 29. Legal Theory Blog

31. Counterfeit Chic

31. Truth on the Market

31.  CrimProf Blog

31.  Empirical Legal Studies

35. Blackprof.com

35. Is That Legal?

35. M & A Law Prof Blog

35. Legal History Blog

35. California Appellate Report

40. The Right Coast

40. TortsProf Blog

40. Legal Profession Blog

43. Legal Ethics Forum

43. Sex Crimes

43. Family Law Prof Blog

46. Susan Crawford Blog

47.Sports Law Blog

47. Info/Law 47.  Property Prof Blog

50. Jurisdynamics

Not perfect but perhaps a better way to rank than any single metric.  That The Volokh Conspiracy and Sentencing Law ranks at the top shows that those with "influence" indicia (law review and court citations) finish towards the top.  If anyone wants to see the standards used to rank and some of the underlying data, let me know.

Comments

[Mark Tapscott]

Excellent approach to ranking. Interesting, too, that several of your top 10 also appear in The Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem that is based on inbound links: http://truthlaidbear.com/ecosystem.php. As the Blogosphere matures, success is increasingly based on demonstrated expertise, which suggests that we will see a decline in the popularity of general/personal opinion commentary sites and a steady increase in the impact of blogs like these in your ranking.

[Stephen "Professor" Bainbridge]

Jay: This has been an interesting and informative series of posts to which I've now linked. While I'm gratified to have made the top 10, I can't help wondering how my shift from one to three blogs will end up affecting my ranking in these sort of polls. After all, the PB.com is no longer a blog per se, but merely a portal page to the family of blogs.