My Rank is fading quickly, almost as quickly as Technorati itself
Douglas KarrMack asks, Does Technorati Suck or is our Online Media Appetite Changing?
In the past, I’ve utilized my Technorati rank as a guide to how well my blog was doing. I LOVED Technorati. I was even in contact with some of their team directly. I wrote a plugin for use with Technorati! I even got to preview one of the releases.
On July 11th, I broke the 2,000 mark on Technorati. Today I’m ranked 3,356!
Rank Down, Popularity Up?
- Am I blogging less? No.
- Am I getting less links from top blogs? No.
- Am I getting less links from any other blogs? No.
- Is my readership down? No.
- Are my subscribers down? No.
I just broke 1,000 RSS subscribers and I’m averaging another 1,000 readers daily - this is great growth for the blog and well ahead of where I was when I was breaking the 2,000 rank.
So What IS the Problem with Technorati?
Here’s what gives… just look at the blog ranked #98 on Technorati:
The problem is that Technorati is accepting non-blogs disguised as blogs. Here’s the about note on the CNN’s Political Ticker itself:
The CNN Political Ticker is the hottest destination for the latest political news with dispatches, behind-the-scenes reports, and expert commentary, 24-7.
Do they mention ‘blog’ anywhere in the description of the site? What, because they’re posting news articles to WordPress, this is a ‘blog’? I realize there are many definitions of what a blog may or may not be, but putting feathers on a pig doesn’t make it a chicken.
Technorati has removed blog #45 John Chow from the Top 100 list because they disagree with how John accumulates his links with other bloggers… but yet they allow CNN, a media giant, to pose as a blog? C’mon Technorati!
Technorati is being massively infiltrated by editorial and advertorial websites that are trying to ride the blog rollercoaster… and because of it, they’re losing their own authority, and ultimately, their credibility in the blogging space. In the meantime, the bloggers who helped build the popularity of the service are the ones left out in the cold.
UPDATE: Ian Kallen of Technorati responds, “When Is A Blog Not A Blog?“
And at 3,000 Doug your ranking is far better than mine LOL
The rolling six month window of authority calculation is always going to have ebbs and flows — it’s not just how many unique blogs link to you in that time frame, it’s also how many link to the blogs above and below you in the histogram. We also had some operational glitches related to the data center move that we did that made rank calculations stale; fixing that may have caused some sudden jumps/drops but the normal state of affairs is for rank to drift up and down with how much attention one’s blog posts receive within the blogosphere.
As far as what blogs should be included, this is becoming a harder issue to deal with. On the one hand we have media conglomerates with editorial teams publishing blogs (that the rest of the blogosphere actively talks about and links to) and on the other hand there are the John Chows selling and bartering links, which submerges what substance people are really paying attention to.
Indeed, we’ve had a lot of twists and turns at Technorati this year. But all of us at the company are committed from turning the doom and gloom that seems to be the popular characterization at the moment into our finest hour.
Regards,
-Ian
Technorati
Thanks for responding to this.
Perhaps Technorati can take a leadership role in developing some new metrics in the industry to avoid issue altogether. For instance, it might be nice if you broke down:
As well, I’d love to see Technorati rank blogs based on their Industry. I would love to see a “Top 100 Marketing Blogs” on the web. John Chow SHOULD rank high for keywords such as “Making Money”… there’s no better resource on the web and he provides fantastic information. Technorati would benefit from him ranking high… and no doubt he should rank higher than a fake blog from CNN!
I’m not sure what your focus and vision are at Technorati. I have no doubt you’re working hard, but you should not be turning your back on the folks that have done so much to promote your service.
Also, how come incoming links are no longer working with WordPress? You folks had a solid place in every blog’s dashboard and you gave it up. You should get this up and running asap and even speak to the folks at WP about getting more information in their (rank, authority, RSS feed, etc.).
6 months is an era in Internet time, Ian. Get this stuff fixed and Technorati’s era won’t end.
I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and discuss this.
With all Respect,
Doug
My Technorati authority dropped from 600 to 300 in a matter of weeks, at a time when my readership continued to climb and I a was getting links from other posts. I’m not alone, there are entire threads on T’rati’s support forums with titles like “authority dropping by the hour” ..etc.
New inbound links often don’t show, at the same time my own new posts appear as inboud links - total chaos. I wish Google blog search would have the concept of authority (whatever they call it, a link-count), as they would probably be able to maintain it.
What I mean is… Perhaps the air is more turbulent the higher you go (ranking-wise).
Noah, I think you’re absolutely right. It’s the large media companies that are wreaking havoc with the top Technorati ranks because they carry so much weight coming in the door. I truly believe it’s a disservice to Technorati when they simply reuse content in a blog format to get placement.