Search Engine Wednesday | Technorati - I Want to Love You
Hey, You're New Here! We love new people.
Please do us the honor of returning. You can subscribe by RSS feed, or get updates by email. We also welcome your feedback on the posted information. When filling out the form, don't forget to leave your link and your first name.
… but how can I love you if you’re never there?
I can’t believe I’m writing this post. I’ve been singing the praises of Technorati forever. Let me clear one thing up first… I love Technorati, but sadly, I’m not in love anymore. In fact, I think it’s time for us to break up. And yeah, the new clothes are cute, but it’s really too little too late. And I agree with Shoemoney about WTF.
I know, I know, this time last year I was saying the same thing about Google, and now here we are back again with Google Tuesdays. So how do you know I’m serious about being through with Technorati this time?
Well, first, there’s the fact that too often, Technorati just plain isn’t working. It doesn’t pick up as much of the Blogosphere as Google does. And I’m not talking about my site yet. I mean, I look through tags for content on prominent blogs that I Know just updated, so I can see who else tagged, or wrote on a topic, to gather a group of other places for you to read, and see who’s linking to what. That’s probably what led to me not using them anymore.
Now, in Google Blog Search, I might have to deal with spam every now and then in deep results, but at least I know that the criteria for placement is pure.
When I first got sick, I started hearing about the whole controversy with Technorati taking link value away from those who participated in the 2000 Blogger’s project. I didn’t see what the big deal is, and I still don’t.
Some saw it as a ploy for links, and so did I, but then I did what any reasonable technician or scientist does - research. You have to test out these hypotheses, you can’t just take a handful of people’s word for it, not when your decision could affect so many people.
It really was a relatively harmless meme- and not really a meme because you didn’t have to link back, or to anyone else, to participate. It was basically a public link roll that Other people added portability to.
Ironically until the project got such high profile exposure, there wasn’t much link value created for those who participated. And most participants weren’t doing it for the links, it was a fun exercise to get to know people who mostly weren’t widely known yet.
It was hardly a chain post, as Technorati called it, and I felt that showed how out of touch they were. (So is the idea that links are the only currency to measure a blog’s value, but that’s another post.)
Especially since linking to the project was completely optional - and the originating blog that wanted to link to 2000 bloggers had NO link juice until Technorati made a fuss about it.
First of all, if you’re going to penalize some people for that, it is only fair to also penalize anyone who does something similiar or worse. And I see far more abuse going on there that doesn’t get so much as a wrist slap, which is why I stopped using Technorati as a source in the first place.
I’m not saying Technorati shouldn’t be able to do whatever it wants. Just that every action has consequences, and I think a lot of bloggers had the same view as I do - a blog search engine is supposed to represent the mainstream of the legitimate Blogosphere, not tell it what to do.
Still, I was generally happy with Technorati, at least for the mean time. Soon after I came back however, I got a message from a colleague telling me he couldn’t favorite my blog. And I thought, hey, if it isn’t working, what usually works is if I delete my blog and re-add it.
Nothing. I’d heard from some people that they’d been having problems with Technorati for months, but quite frankly, I hadn’t been around, so I couldn’t say if it was a flash in the pan or a sign of decline. But Now?
I have to say I was wrong for saying these were isolated incidents. Clearly something happening to everyone is not isolated. And I remember quoting once that updating a search engine that updates the live web is like changing a tire on a moving car, I thought that was a good answer.
But how come Google can do it? Clearly it’s actually possible.
So, since
1- writing to them of the error brought me nothing - for the first time,
2- I can’t remember the last time I used Technorati and was happy with the results I got,
3- I’m not getting as much from Technorati as I’ve been giving over the last year, and
4- My possibly temporary deletion from their directory/engine/tags/favorites has had absolutely No Effect whatsoever, traffic-wise or other-wise,
I’m done with Technorati. We’re broken up, and I doubt we’re going to get back together. Even if the traffic I was getting from them came from feed results where I showed up in their engine, clearly I can live without it. And I love the idea of Technorati. Searching the live web sounds so cool, and was for a long time. But not anymore.
I’m clearly not the only one dissatisfied of late, either, although other people’s reasons for being unhappy are far less vain than my own.
Steve Rubel says Blog Search is dead and Google killed it, and Danny Sullivan tells both sides of the story in Technorati Blog Search Relaunches - not that those bloggers are specifically unhappy, I can’t speak for them.
But … read the comments at each blog where you see the news coverage, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. To top it all off, at the time of this posting, Technorati itself is down, so to find more reactions, I had to go to Google Blog Search. But instead of a continuing list, here’s the link to posts that are linked to the announcement, and you can look here for more on the topic.
(Since I’d bet a month’s earnings that it will be up later on today.)
I was especially entertained by TechCrunch’s point of view on the Technorati outage.
Again, I do love Technorati, and I cling to the hope that this re-launch as more than a blog search engine will mean everything gets better. But I also recognize that that’s what it is hope, and faith no longer.
Sigh….
How To Get Unstoppable Traffic? Go Evergreen. Read the true story of how one of the site owners, ill and preparing to retire, created traffic so powerful that she couldn’t turn it off.
Bookmark | Save | Share | EmailComments
Leave a Reply
Don't Forget to Fill Out Your Link! We DoFollow.
Want more free tips like this? Try Search Engine Wednesday | Today's Topics and Continuing Yesterday's Google Tuesdays or Traffic Thursdays | Technorati Love Update or even Traffic Thursdays Concept n Such!
For twice monthly or weekly updates and extra traffic information, you can elect subscribe to the Zero Cost Traffic Ezine, which features Free Traffic Tips blog updates and additional web marketing related news.
Privacy Policy
Comments protected by Lucia's Linky Love.
-
Reach Me Faster on Facebook!
Translate
