The Smelly Web: Time for a Change

It’s been six months since my last report on The Smell Web Indexes. The idea was to track the popularity of fragrance-related blogs according to their Alexa site traffic rankings. It made it possible to see who was up and who was down, and more importantly, see how this section of the blogosphere was faring in general. There was an index just for solo author blogs, another for team blogs, and a third for corporate and community blogs.

While I haven’t posted the results in a while, the data monkeys locked in the subcellar of FirstNerve Manor have continued to collect the data on a weekly basis. I recently visited some of the smelly sites and realized it is time to make some changes to the Indexes. I have done this before when sites were discontinued by their owners or simply fell off the Alexa traffic charts. I also knew I would have to stop tracking a blog if it ceased to be about smell; until now, this hasn’t happened.

On Vetivresse, a solo blog by Christopher Voigt, the last new post was on January 20, 2010. Three months later there was a post indicating that the blog had moved, but it actually seems to have ceased publishing. I’ve had no success finding it in a new location or in getting a response from Christopher. Therefore Vetivresse will be removed from the index.

In the absence of fresh posts, Alexa traffic rankings do not reflect current readership levels. When the Brazilian team blog Perfume da Rosa Negra went silent in November, 2010, I came close to removing them from the Team Blog Index. The site resumed posting on March 3 of this year, so the Rosa Negra team gets a reprieve.

Finally, over at Bitter Grace Notes, Maria Browning has written about perfumes in a blog that has a decidedly literary and artistic bent. Maria’s blog aesthetic—poetry matched to exquisite artwork—is exceptional and always interesting. I had never read D.H. Lawrence’s poem Dolor of Autumn before she posted it:

The acrid scents of autumn,
Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear
Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn
And the snore of the night in my ear.

Maria is not primarily a perfumer blogger, but when she writes about perfume her insights are worthwhile. Lately, she has written about it less; her last scented post was on October 17, 2010. In it she paired reflections on the movie Carnival of Souls with a consideration of Enigma, “a largely forgotten fragrance from the largely forgotten Alexandra de Markoff line”. It’s a good example of her style.

Bitter Grace Notes was quiet from November 12, 2010 until January 19, 2011. But since Maria’s reappearance there have been no new fragrance posts. Reluctantly, I’ve decided to remove the site from the Solo Blog Index. Even so, I will still be dropping by now and again because I enjoy it.

Blogging is hard work. Interests change. My decision to replace these blogs is based strictly on maintaining the concept and data integrity of the Smelly Web Indexes. It is not a reflection on the quality of the blogs.

Coming soon: Introducing the new players on the Indexes.