Blog Protocol

Okay, so what exactly is the protocol for referencing other people's blogs on your blog? I'm pretty thorough about linking to blogs that are written by people that I know, and to which I care to keep up with. So, when somebody links to your blog, are you supposed to link to theirs? What exactly is the protocol here? Is it true that if one links to your blog, you should link back?

Since I'm a numbers kind of guy, I decided to do a little study, with the following results:

38% of the blogs I link to actually link back to me.
69% of the blogs I link to actually link back to my wife.
38% of the blogs I link to link to my wife but NOT back to me!
6% of the blogs I link to link to me and NOT to my wife.

Now, if it were indeed proper blog protocol to link to all blogs that link to yours, this information suggests that 62% of the people to whom I link don't actually know about my blog. However, I do know of a few cases where these people do indeed come to my blog (I have my ways of knowing ...), but they do not link to it from their own blog. Some people come to my blog via my wife's blog, which, I suppose, is acceptable. And there are others who come to my blog who do not have me linked who, I assume, must come to my blog from a bookmark (or a "favorite", depending on what browser they use). In these cases, I'm flattered -- I've graduated to a bookmark! As for the others, I can only conclude that these people either truly don't know about my blog, or ... *gasp* they don't care to visit my blog at all.

One thing to consider, naturally, is that most of those to whom I link are women, and womanhood is, really, an exclusive club that I am simply unqualified to join, so it's understandable that there might be a little bit of prejudice. But, of course, I am quite proud of the fact that there's actually 6% of my linked blogs (1!) that links to me and NOT to my wife. Wow, I think my blog is coming into it's own ... ;)