Today marks the start of a new beginning with the blog directory.

You can now see how popular your blog is compared to others by seeing how many visits you get from this site. Sure, it's no real analytical comparison - it just means there are more people visiting you.

Over the past few months I've been testing and trialling this feature that's been running in the background. It's been keeping score every time someone clicks on a link that takes them to a gardening blog and compiling them for me to analyse. Well, after the testing has finally finished it's now available for everyone to see and use.

What are the features?

If you click here you can see who has been getting the most visits in the past 24 hours. Go here and you can see who's featuring prominently over the past week. And, finally click here and the most popular blogs will list for the past 30 days.

Every time you click a blog's listing -whether it be the "Visit this site" link, the blog image or the blog title - you are effectively voting for that blog.

Caution

Now we all know that everyone wants to be at the top of any listings, so the temptation is to click as many times on your own blog and 'game' the rankings.

I've already thought that one through and those who try to 'game' the list may be de-listed from any future rankings with the possibility of losing your inclusion in the directory.

You are allowed to click on your blog listing here on the directory no more than once per day but after that it will be seen that you are trying to 'game' it.

Are there other ways to get to the top?

Sure. Some listings you will notice a red star which is for those blogs who the directory considers as friends. It's not an arbitrary procedure and anybody can become a friend. Friends are sorted at the top of the rankings for the number of visits they've secured.

To find out more about becoming a friend, click here.