The Blog Judge

You may sometimes disagree with me, but maybe you should read this page carefully before saying anything.

I use a 10 point system for evaluating the blogs. 0 is the worst possible case, 10 is the best.
I’ve separated the reviewing into 6 parts: Original content, Popularity, Design, Banners, Age, Information.

Original content
Original content is very important for blogs, because it brings something new to the blogosphere and it’s expressed in a personal manner. For content written by the blog author (or authors) without any copy-pasting from other sites, for original content, i award the 10 points. As there’s less and less content (i’m talking about text), those points decrease. I also cut points down when it comes to videos, because that’s just a copy-paste, no original text involved.
10 - most original, 0 - not original at all

Popularity
If a large number of people like a certain blog, then it must have something special. Popularity is one of those important factors in reviewing, because even if a blog is very original, pretty, and informational, it also has to be read by a number of people and get a lot of feedback to be called good. A very popular blog (usually from Technorati TOP100) will get a 10, a new and only-read-by-two-people blog will get a 0 or maybe even 1.

Design
Design is also a key factor for a blog. Many people use RSS feeds, but also many people don’t. I appreciate clean designs that don’t squeeze the text in the page, that have enough room not to hurt my eyes while reading, that have calm colors (still about the eyes) and that have the elements arranged clearly on the page.
A good simple (not too simple) and beautiful blog will get a 10, while the loaded-up-with-flashing-images-and-lots-of-colors-and-text blog will get a 0.

Banners
Monetizing your blog is very important, especially if you don’t have a job and have to write to make a living. One, two, three banners placed so nobody would really notice them is very good and will get the 10 points, while a blog loaded with all kinds of colored, flashing, moving, intrusive banners will get the lowest score.

Age
I consider a blog with a history to be a better blog. I would give a 10 for a blog since 2000, a 8 for a blog since 2002, 7 for a blog since 2003 …. 2 for over 6 months, 1 for over 3 months and anything newer will get a 0.

Information
A great blog is a blog that tells you something, a blog which teaches you something, that offers you detailed information about something, that makes you a little bit smarter after you read it. One that manages to do that will get a 10 for offering lots of information, while one that doesn’t manage to provide that would get a 0.

Above these numbers will always be my personal opinion (as a normal user) about the blog.