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Have you ever wondered which of your articles are the most popular? Do you even care?

I don't know, maybe you don't. But I was wondering and thought I'd try to find out.

Now, I'm not talking about marketing effectiveness. I'm just talking about crude popularity here. You know, prettiest prom dress; winningest personality; most likely to succeed. That sort of thing.

This kind of measurement is a little tricky because you can't go on raw numbers alone. The article published 15 weeks ago will certainly register more page views than the one published last week. Don't you think?

The passage of time skews even the best of intentions.

So what can you do?

I recommend a moving average approach.

First, download the CSV version of your Articles Report into a spreadsheet. Then, go down the list and give each article a rating based on the following criteria:

Give each article one point for every page view. A little sophomoric? Perhaps. But trust me.

Now, award 10 points for each time an ezine publisher followed the EzinePublisher link to that article's html and text codes. The reason this is more valuable than page views should be obvious. The whole point to article marketing is to write articles that get publishers to pick up the article and publish it, thereby increasing your readership. To the extent that you are making this happen with your ability to write compelling and useful articles, it's a valuable measure.

For every time an article has been e-mailed, award it three points. An e-mailed article means you have at least hit the interest nerve of some member of your target audience. It may not have been a publisher so the category isn't as valuable as the EzinePublisher link, but it is more valuable than a simple page view, which doesn't necessarily mean that someone read the entire article.

Next, give yourself a point for every positive comment and take away two points for every negative comment. Hey, that's not fair!

Alright, you've got me. I guess I'll have to appeal to human nature. Most people will not take the time to leave a comment, even if they like an article. Furthermore, they are more likely to leave a positive comment than a negative one. Given these two self-evident truths, if you get a negative comment, it means you struck a nerve. Take off two points and drive on. On the other hand, if you got a positive comment go ahead and pat yourself on the back and take the points you'll get from page views, downloads and other atta-a-humanoids as a better measure.

Finally, if you got any ratings votes, give yourself a point for each star. A five-star rating will warrant you five points. A three-star rating, three points. And that's all there is to it. Well, not quite.

Now that you've tallied the points, what does it mean? The article with the most points does not win the 'most likely to succeed' contest. Remember, time skews all things.

Divide the popularity points for each article by the number of weeks that it has been published on EzineArticles. If you have an article that ends up with 49 points and you published it 10 weeks ago, that article will have a final rating of 4.9. Now, rank your articles according to that number and you have a decent measure of popularity based on a moving average.

OK, go ahead. Say, "Who cares?"

Allen Taylor is an award-winning journalist and freelance writer. He is the operations manager for a full-service content provider at http://www.articlecontentprovider.com