Linking other blogs use to be one of the greatest benefits of the blogosphere. Larger sites could help catapult newer/smaller blogs into larger audiences by giving them a link, and the more linking a blog gets the better that blog is rated on services like Alexa, Tehnorati and Google Page Rank.

Sadly that blogosphere practice has greatly diminished, and mostly on the left. The large blogs automatically are given an extra boost by those ranking services because they have permanent links on numerous sites through blogrolls*, but the old practice of linking other posts is falling into the abyss. While those large blogs have a pretty much guaranteed presence in the blogosphere, it makes it a lot harder for a new voice to break into the establishment. Its like the blogosphere is becoming everything we complain about with the mainstream media.

A perfect example of how a major blog linking a smaller blog can help boost traffic can be seen over at Bloggasm. Recently Simon got linked by the Huffington Post and saw over 37,000 hits from them in three days. Just his first day alone was phenomenal:

How much traffic did this link bring? Lots. For the first three hours I received approximately 4,000 unique visitors an hour to just that one article. Traffic for the rest of the day remained strong, not once dipping below 2,000 uniques an hour as the link began traveling down the front page. By midnight that night, Huffington Post had sent approximately 30,000 unique visitors to that one article

That kind of traffic is rather common with getting a link from a larger site. Mike’s Blog Roundup on Crooks and Liars is another example of something that really drives traffic. We get emails all the time of people thanking us for the link and ecstatic over the traffic boost they saw.

If the blogosphere would start following the linky love practice again like it used to then we would start finding more prominent voices in our political debate. It would benefit the blogosphere as a whole also. And as I said, this practice seems to be pretty much lost on the left. If you read the right blogs, like Malkin, you will see that they are never shy about giving out a link. The left – not so much.

*A quick note on blogrolls. The old form is pretty much dead, which is why I use a newer system on here and at Crooks and Liars. Our blogrolls actually check each blog. The list is then displayed from the most recently updated to the oldest. I have many more blogs in my blogroll than listed and you can see them, along with the titles of their 5 latest posts, by clicking on the more link at the bottom of the Blogroll widget.