How Much Are Blogs Worth?

If that were true, one site showing video of Janet Jackson's Superbowl mishap would be worth more than five or ten A-list bloggers combined.

Interesting study!
I do believe that traffic and links are correlated. Both play significant roles in selling ads. However, I am not really surprised to know the study outcome. Traffic does make a difference. I think more studies and researches need to be conducted in this issue.

anyone who values a business on anything but earnings, revenue and growth is an idiot.

links mean nothing.

page views mean something, but nothing without revenue.

revenue means something, but nothing without earnings.

earnings are everything.

nothing changes.... earnings are everything.

It should really be common sense, if you take a moment to think about it, that traffic and not links is (or should be?) the primary factor in determining ad prices and thus selling ads. Traffic is an indication of the number of people that are looking at your blog; links can help to drive traffic, but at the end of the day traffic is what matters. Although the metrics used to determine unique users vary, people are who the advertisers want to connect with. Thus it makes sense that when placing an ad (or valuing a business) you would want to understand what the pageview number means and how this will give you returns on your advertising, be it in converted sales, branding, etc.

Another metric that isn't so obviously calculated is how much of a community/conversation the blog is. Are people making comments and coming back to it time and time again, or are they just receiving the information? What makes blogs really valuable is the potential for advertisers to connect with the people who are (as Blogads.com puts it) making opinions.

Well this is where I am curious, because it seems that the community idea should have some worth, however you decide to define it. So wouldn't the links be a part of calculating that worth? Sure, I agree that if you want to make money from a blog, you need to sell ads and that those ads need to pay for the blog. So it needs to make a profit. And yes, advertisers will look at the traffic.

The only issue I am wondering about is do you create value or worth through community that you don't measure in traffic.

The community aspect definitely has worth, both in the wider blogosphere and for individual blogs. From the perspective of a blogger, having (common) links between blogs within a niche is an obvious way of showing friendship and common ideals. It is, in short, a stamp of approval, a recommendation to readers. It leads to more of a sense of belonging and meaningful participation, and ultimately higher traffic. There is also value in having an active readership -- this is part of the selling point of blogs. Blogs are quite inexpensive compared to traditional media advertising, and most blogs reach a fairly limited audience. What attracts advertisers to blogs is the fact that they know that they will be reaching people who are impassioned by the subject at hand -- early adopters and activists who will go out, and if they're impressed, tell all of their friends and family about what they saw. So... value is created, and right now it isn't being specifically measured, but is assumed to be one of the common characteristics of blogs.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, I stumbled across the business and blogging world at the same time, at what point in time did they become one? the moment i checked out my first blog, I attempted to read the bloggers comments but was bombarded by a pop up web site, (I guess banners are hisory) asking me to take an on-line survey. by the way, no compensation. Who was responsible, I don't know, I'm going to contact the blogger to get more info. Iv'e been posting to the web for years, but blogs didn't catch my eye till I saw it on a Business Week front cover. There will have to be a balance, People who blog are like any respectable Net User, they visit blogs for info. if they wil be bombarded by pop up's and banners to the point they can't read the article, well you tell me. it won't cetainly make them happy, and people who are not happy tend to not be in the mood for puchases, at least I can say that based on my own experiences. to learn about blogging, I think i'll continue to check this site out, I want to get into blogging with my own articles, but have a lot of research about the in and out's of the whole process. by the way, this is bussiness week, no spell checker?

traffic and more specifically popularity have always been key factors...this isn't really a new discovery is it?