I can’t say that I’ve ever been a huge fan of Technorati. When I first started blogging it seemed that a lot of bloggers were completely consumed with how well they were doing with their Technorati ranking and authority (a measure of how many other blogs link to you). I didn’t know much so I figured it must be important if so many people were that concerned with how well they were doing in Technorati.
Building My Technorati Ranking
I did all the things you’re supposed to do to build up your Technorati ranking (which pretty much consists of building traffic and getting people to link to you – two things I would have done anyway). In May I had a Technorati Rank of 110,158 and a Technorati Authority of 45. By June I had increased my Rank to 6,959 and my Authority to 492.
Technorati Problems Started Early On For Me
It wasn’t long before I started realizing how little I actually cared for Technorati. Their site was always going down, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how your site increased in ranking or authority, and lots of people were claiming that their support was slow in coming. I didn’t really care since both my rank and authority were increasing. I simply put the little widget on my page to show it off and went about my business of building my blog.
BloggingZoom Changes My Whole Outlook
Once I got involved in BloggingZoom back in November of last year, I began to realize what it was like to really build traffic. My other rankings and measurements really didn’t mean much to me so I quit tracking my Technorati rank and authority all together. In November, the last time I checked it, I had a Ranking of 4,527 and an Authority of 722.
Traffic Explosion
Since getting involved with BloggingZoom my traffic, as many of you know, as simply exploded. I went from averaging about 1,600 hits a month to hitting just under 30,000 in December and over 20,000 so far this month. I’ve also had so many people link to me over the past couple of months that I can barely keep up with it. The growth I’ve seen has just been phenomenal.
Technorati Gets Ridiculous
Well, yesterday, I logged in to Technorati for some reason that escapes me now. I was more than a little bewildered to see that I now have a Technorati Ranking of 17,120 and a Technorati Authority of 295.
How is that even possible?
I can’t imagine what it would feel like to see those numbers if I actually cared about Technorati. I mean, it’s just ridiculous. My traffic is almost 19X more than it was in November yet my ranking fell from 4,527 to 17,120?!?! That would be amusing if it wasn’t so messed up.
Maybe There’s A Reason?
In all fairness I haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on with Technorati so I don’t know if there’s a reasonable explanation for the change or not. It’s possible that they redid their ranking algorithm and let everyone know exactly what’s changed and why it’s changed and all the juicy details. Of course, it’s just as likely (probably more so) that Technorati is just really, really wacky.
Anyone else ever noticed anything screwy like this from Technorati?
It’s not “wacky” because it always keep the last 6 months of links to your blog. That’s the simple reason you drop.
Steve McGrath’s last blog post..BloggingZoom Was Hacked!
What Steve said. They only count links from the last 6 months. If someone linked to you 6 months ago and hasn’t linked to you since, you drop. Sucks though.
Lizzie’s last blog post..My Own Island Paradise
Yeah, it sucks that they give you a ranking based on who links to you basically…that’s the whole thing, not how much traffic you are getting, etc.
I was going to say the same thing these guys did…probably 6 months+ ago you did some big thing to get a bunch of links from people, and now they’ve tailed off.
I had a ranking of only 10 in November, got that to 60 in January, but then had it drop to 53 the other day…for the same reason.
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Still seems odd because, like I said, I’ve had more people linking to me than ever before…
Yes, Technorati has some problems. One of them is that their database will only let you add 200 favorites — I had over 500 before they put the limitation into effect.
I gained 50 links one day (and they were valid) and watched them disappear in two days, without reason. I don’t know what Technorati’s problems are, and I really don’t care — I only look once a day if that much. At once time, though, I actually used it to see what my favorite blogs were up to — but that doesn’t seem to be up-to-date most of the time either nowadays.
One thing I noticed about Technocrappy, is that if other sites link to you that AREN’T on techno as well, they don’t always register an authority point. I know of about 2 dozen sites that have me linked for one story or another, and I have no ‘techno-ticks’ to show for them. Then again, some do.
Oh well, perhaps well learn the reasons some day. But I’m in no hurry to find out to be honest.
John
johnsblogs42@yahoo.com
http://hoopyfrooddude.blogspot.com/
johnsblogs42′s last blog post..The Pope And The Media: Praises And Slams
Technorati is almost as ridiculous now as Google. I recently switched my blog from a blogspot domain to my own domain. I kept it on the blogger server but I’ve gone from a PR of 4 to 0 and Google has destroyed my traffic…..Technorati is no better.
Todd, PR doesn’t jump ship with content, it sticks with the domain itself. Eventually you’ll get the PR update, but it could be a while.
That said, I agree that Technorati’s rank and authority algorithms do tend to suck. I can understand why they’d only care about the last six months, but there are just so many ways to game the system. Anyone remember the ViralTags campaigns that were going around the blogosphere last spring? There’s no penalties for such things unless you happen to get into the Top 100 sites.
Of course, Technorati doesn’t seem to matter to many seasoned bloggers, so it’s only a matter of time before the company adapts (which doesn’t seem likely), or the go the way of Altavista.
ジェイソン (Jason)’s last blog post..Planning Our Obsolescence
I think I have to agree with ジェイソン (Jason) on this one. I haven’t seen Technorati make any kind of move towards making their system better. I tend to believe they’ll eventually sell out and/or change to the point where we don’t even recognize them anymore.
Hi Jason,
I’ve claimed all my blogs on Technorati, but to be perfectly honest, I can’t remember ever really using it for anything. And, I know for a fact that I’ve never gotten any significant traffic from it … even mybloglog and blogcatalog bring many more visitors.
… I’m really not sure what the big deal is about Technorati. lol, but I still have silly little buttons on my blogs begging people to add me to their favorites.
Todd Morris’s last blog post..Hoops for Hearts … Help my Daughter Haley Raise Money for the American Heart Association
I know what you mean Todd. Heck, I still have that stupid Alexa box on my site and I don’t even know why I do that. Hmm…maybe that’ll be the next thing to go away…
Stupid Alexa box, hahaha, i have one too, i just can’t get rid of it though, maybe soon!
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The only use I have for Technorati is the ping and the tagging…
What other REAL use is there?
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Exactly, Shawn. I mean, I guess you could argue that there’s communities and such, but I’ve never found them that useful personally.