As of today, my blog "cloud" is 4,360 hits in Google, but that's 204 displayed hits, and 4,140 total hits, compared to 3,590, 190, and 3,440 a week ago. My
blog cloud is defined as the results of a
Google search of my name in quotes and the word "blog". Ultimately, the second number is the most accurate or reliable representation of your blog cloud.
I suspect that the numbers bounce around erratically since blogs sometimes have lists of recent comments, and a number of my older comments simply fell off those lists. That's life, but there is also the lesson that you need to stay current and can't thrive for very long on old contributions.
My strategy for raising these numbers is to continue to make quality comments on the blogs of others, as well as to post my own blog posts when I feel that I have something to say.