Blogging's Impact on Search Position Quantified

Search Engine Watch has an article about search's impact on PR and reputation management. Blogs are featured at the end of the piece. However, one statistic really jumped out at me.

According to Converseon's study of the top 20 search engine listings for the BusinessWeek 100 brands in July 2005, 39% of the top search listings were derived from consumer-generated media such as blogs. Based on this study, Converseon estimated there are 16,000 flame sites web-wide and growing.