Questions on scores and rankings

How are PeerIndex scores calculated?

This is without doubt the one question we get asked the most!

We believe web authority is established when individuals participate in meaningful exchanges of information online. These exchanges take place all over the social web, whether it'd be a shared link on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. We also believe that the type of information we share reveals a lot about who we are, whom we know, and what we know - after all, we tend to talk about the things we care about, are most knowledgeable in, and with people interested in similar subjects.

The PeerIndex algorithm recognizes the importance of speed and quantity by which we spot, share (and thus approve) content on any specific topic. Our choice of content recommendations can thus be used as a proxy to measure our knowledge, or authority, in a specific subject area.

We also take into account the relationships we build on various social media platforms. The impact of those relationships also affects our authority exhibited on the web. Your authority on a subject is affirmed when the content you share is approved - i.e. Retweeted, Facebook Shared, +1'ed or commented on, by someone else that is an authority on the subject.

I have refreshed all my social media profiles, why don't I see an improvement in my PI scores?

In the PeerIndex algorithm, we believe that authority/influence takes some time to gain. Sudden bursts of activity or inactivity should not change your PeerIndex scores in a particular topic quickly. If you have recently added new Social Sources, please give us a few days and check back! If you still don't see a difference in your scores in a week, please let us know.

Also remember that our rankings are based on activity in topics we track. It is quite possible we aren't tracking a topic that you are an authority in. If you are particularly interested in a topic which we aren't ranking in yet, then encourage people you know who are interested in the topic to join and once we've identified a large enough community, we'll begin to automatically rank people in that topic.

How often do the scores update?

Currently, we update your score on a multiple times a week basis. Sometimes, as we are modifying the algorithm to take in new measurements to determine influence/authority, we have changes in the scoring that can be seen as a sudden change or a delay.

We believe social capital and authority is built up (and drawn down) relatively slowly, so the scores you see on PeerIndex reflect months of activities. It would reason then a few days of frantic activities in one subject area will not have a measurable impact on your scores. This is also built into our system to prevent rank-gaming by spammers and bots alike.

What can I do to improve my PI or topical PI scores?

There is quite a bit you can do to improve your scores. In particular:

• Claim your PeerIndex profile and validate your accounts with various other services including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. This will mean we can better capture your activity along with proving you are more real.
• Share good quality content. Avoid content farms and similar low quality content - if it is a spam site, you lose authority. Avoid items behind paywalls - if we can't read it, we don't include it.
• Build your audience without relying on mutual following. Clear out your followers of spam, bot and inactive accounts.
• Engage in conversations with others - influence and authority is based on your interactions, not just your posts.
• Increase your activity but don't spam. This can be simply sharing more good URLs that resonate with a community and engaging in conversation with others who are interested in your topics.
• Invite your friends to PeerIndex - the more friends you have connected to PeerIndex, the more likely it is we will capture your activity and how people respond to you, providing us with a more accurate score. In addition, this will improve your community realness score.
• If you are particularly interested in a topic we are not tracking, create a Group and invite people from that community to join PeerIndex. Our system identifies growing topic discussions and will create new topics communities to reflect this new community interest.

End of the day, improving your scores is really pretty simple: share good and timely information, engage with authority figures in the topic, make sure your followers are largely real people, and we'll take care of the rest.

I'm interested in ranking people in a specific community or topic, how do I do this?

As mentioned earlier, the easiest way is to invite members of the topic community you are interested in. Either invite them to join PeerIndex or create a Group and add them to your Group. As the community begins to converse and becomes large enough for meaningful analysis, the PeerIndex algorithm will automatically rank people in that topic.

I disagree with some of the authority figures you have identified. Why are they there?

Great, then we would really, and we do mean really, love to hear from you! If you think there are people that should be on our top 20 lists but are currently missing, or ones that are but have no business being there, then please let us know via the Contact Us page.

The mis-identification of authority can happen for several reasons. One, authority figures often need to have a social web presence in order for us to pick them up. That is to say, they should be actively sharing information, not just chit-chatting. Two, the conversations they have on the social web should ideally be relevant to topics they are most known for. Today, you can include on your profile your blogs and other social networks (like LinkedIn and Quora) to increase the sources of information for the PeerIndex algorithm.

The reverse is also true. There are plenty of spammers and bots out there tweeting massive amounts of links on specific subjects - some are relevant, others are not. We have developed a range of tools to weed out those profiles - but some may still sneak in from time to time. So if you spot one, please let us know. Our team is always looking at your feedback and tweaking the algorithm.

I tweet and re-tweet an awful lot of content on a specific area - so why don't I have a good PeerIndex?

Before we address the specifics of your profile, let us ask a couple of questions:

• Are you the first to discover and share good content, or do you just retweet information that's already become popular?
• Do you share information regularly or sporadically?
• Do you engage with other influencers online, or do you merely parse your links through a feeder?

Being timely, original, and well, human, will help you in improving your PI scores.

How is PeerIndex different than other similar offerings on the market?

A great deal of offerings on the market at the moment look primarily at Twitter, while we try to incorporate your authority across the entire social web when calculating your PeerIndex. We also focus on your contributions to the various "topic communities" you participate in - and where your actions spark other actions. Also, our PeerIndex algorithm is also based on the quality of content a user propagates on a subject, versus other "noise factors" measurements.

Questions on profiles

I don't have a Twitter account, can I still see my web authority?

As a matter of fact, YES. As of today, we are enabling both Twitter and Facebook authentication to create PeerIndex profiles. In the coming months, we will be including other authentication solutions into our system - so keep your eyes peeled.

I have a Twitter/Facebook account, but I can't seem to find myself. How come?

We are currently tracking 50+ million PeerIndex profiles, and our crawler is adding tens of thousands of names to our database every day. If you can't find yourself then register with Twitter or Facebook and we will generate a profile for you.

If you can't find someone else, send them a tweet to join PeerIndex and we will generate a profile for them.

Why don't I see a detailed profile of myself?

Do you see an overall PeerIndex score, but no detailed profile? There are a couple of possible explanations:

• We have just started tracking you, and your topical scores are not stable enough for us to present back to you yet.
• The topics that you are ranked in have not been made public. This is the most likely explanation.

PeerIndex tracks close to 8000 different topics, but only 2000+ have been made public. We will continue introducing new topics as communities form around them. Expect your PeerIndex profile to display more details as the information becomes richer.. If you think you should rank in a certain topic, but this hasn't happened yet, then please let us know.

How do you choose which topics to cover?

We started our topic selection process by picking topics that are most discussed, and where authority is most transparently represented on the social web. We currently have close to 8000 topics being tracked, with close to 2000 shown publicly. As communities form and authorities begin to arise, you should see more topics appear in your profile. Again, if you think there is a missing topic that should be included, please let us know.

I want to check out my organization's web authority, but I can't seem to find it. Why?

We do track public profiles of organizations. Right now, our focus at the moment lies not with commercial and organizational feeds, but the expression of authority emanating from real people. We will be introducing a separate list of organizational authorities in the near future. In the meantime, if you'd like to find out more on the authority of your business's web presence, then drop us a note and we'll let you know!

Questions on API uses

What kind of information can I expect from access to PeerIndex's API?

You can learn more about our API here.