Steve Rubel recently made reference to a ranking of PR blogs in the form of a Social Media Index. The actual listing and ordering of blogs according to various criteria was posted at Edelman’s Europe CEO blog, SixtySecondView.

Our SEO firm’s blog, Online Marketing Blog was included in each permutation of the list using a wide variety of criteria. I have yet to see so many different criteria used in any other ranking of marketing or PR blogs. That includes the AdAge Power 150 and Onalytica’s ranking of the most influential blogs, both of which include TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog.

Such lists always attract a bit of scrutiny and criticism, as they should. It keeps them honest or outs them as otherwise.

One of the comparisons we often make when describing the need for ongoing link acquisition for our Search Engine Optimization practice is with media relations.

For example. as long as an organization wants coverage in their industry’s media, they need an advocate (agency or in-house) reminding journalists of company news and story ideas or the publication will end up writing about someone else.

For link building, a company needs to allocate ongoing resources to the pitching and acquisition of links because they are a critical component to how search engines rank web pages. Without ongoing link building, the search engines will rank pages with more and better quality inbound links.

In both cases there is a steady stream of competition and to persist (with the exception of Fortune 50 brands) in top visibility within standard search engines, it will require persistence in promotion. Of course there are other variables in both cases, but it’s a good illustration for ongoing attention.