Technorati: Maybe It’s Just not a Good Idea
Technorati: what is it? A blog search engine? A post mashup tool? A link tracking service? For me, at least, this is what Technorati thinks they do, but lets be honest- they don’t do any of those well.
Do we Need a Blog Search Engine?
Does the world really have a need to search through only blogs for information? Maybe the answer you’re looking for would be on a non-blog site. All hypothetical situations aside, lets take a look at the (cover your eyes) blogosphere (I had to say it) as it is: a nasty, spam filled place. Technorati maybe report up to 100 million blogs, but how many of them matter? How many make it past 2 posts? How many a run by a human?
Favourite Blogs and Showing You Content
Technorati lets you mark your favourite blogs and it will give the latest posts from them on their homepage. First, this is a filler feature that is way over valued, and second, it’s not even that well done in the first place! Technorati gives the impression that they’re the one stop shop for all things blogging. Read your favourite blogs, check your own, etc… but really, just get an RSS reader.
Link Tracking
Possibly the #1 reason why I hate the service Technorati provides, is the main feature. Basically, you get a “trackback” counter. The amount of trackbacks you have give you your “authority”. How’s that supposed to measure authority? They have everything they need to make this a relevant and valuable system, rewarding good content and good bloggers, instead of those who hop on link trains and run fake contests.
Adopting a more PageRank style system, assigning authority not based on quantity but quality, is really a smart way to go. Would this pull Technorati out of the gutter they appear to be in with launching new designs and features that fail in the blogging world, of all places.
Why Technorati Remains Popular
Technorati will always have the top blogs and high ranks supporting them. Traffic and exposure will never really be a problem for them.
Also, things like the “Incoming Links” in every WordPress admin panel help, and it’s a good quick reference. I’ve used Technorati to find people who’ve stolen my design at least 3 times (they weren’t very smart). Technorati is kind of soaring on potentia, I think. They’ve always had the potential to be great, but they’re like IE with their new releases… disappointing.
Leave a comment
Vincent
October 1st, 2007 at 2:56 AM
Yeah, sometimes the best can be disappointing for people the really know the matter.
Acopic Web Design
October 1st, 2007 at 8:10 AM
I agree with the point about ‘do we need a blog serch engine’ - I don’t think we do. You could split search down into a million and one specific components but that really defeats the point of a search engine. And yes - I don’t think technorati does anything that well.
Adam McKerlie
October 1st, 2007 at 10:13 AM
I don’t even check Technorati. I just don’t see any point to it at all. I’d have to agree with you on every single point especially the Link tracking and Pagerank idea. It would be so much more useful.
Deron Sizemore
October 1st, 2007 at 12:23 PM
You make some good points in which I hadn’t thought about before.
I think I’m going to remove the “add this blog to technorati” from my site. I never liked how it looked anyway.
Freebies
October 1st, 2007 at 12:40 PM
The only time I check Technorati is to see if anybody who has a small time blog (ie, who might only send me one or two hits) has linked to me. Those few hits can easily get burried in my ref logs, which I don’t want to happen since I like to thank anbody who has taken the time to link to one of my sites.
But relying on Technorati for “authority?” Yeah, pretty pointless to me.
Ryan
October 1st, 2007 at 8:11 PM
Google blogsearch is all I really use when I feel the need to blogsearch.
I love the incoming links in Wordpress admin, and I also like how CBC.ca incorporated Technorati to show what blogs are linking to what news stories.
Jamie
October 4th, 2007 at 10:37 PM
While I have a technorati account, and ping it and all, I don’t actually use it to search blogs. Like Ryan, I use google blog search, and before that I just subscribed to dozens of blogs.
Peter
October 5th, 2007 at 11:47 AM
I’m not sure about technorati. I mean why search blogs? Usually I’m searching for content. I do not care if its in a blog or somewhere else.
The authority thing might change though. Guess it is the same as with Google - search result will become worse and the company has to improve the search algorithm
Web Hosts Report
October 6th, 2007 at 1:52 AM
Jumping in on the “bash Technorati” bandwagon - I don’t see any utility in the site. Why would I ever go there when search is intelligent enough to point me in the general direction of good content? Sure, it puts the burden on people to optimize sufficiently well to appear in the SERPs, but that sort of qualifies them as worthy of viewing their material to begin with.
There are a lot of ideas like this one that get tons of hype but don’t deliver anything of value - Blog Rush is another great example of a tool everyone got hot about that yields no tangible, significant result.
pokerto
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 AM
“Google blogsearch is all I really use when I feel the need to blogsearch.
I love the incoming links in Wordpress admin, and I also like how CBC.ca incorporated Technorati to show what blogs are linking to what news stories.”
I totally agree with you!
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