Could Someone Explain Technorati

May 27, 2008 · Comments

I’ll admit that I’m watching my Technorati number. Why? Because it’s one way that the web measures authority, and I’m interested in that for the book I’m working on with Julien Smith. So, when it does weird things (read: things I don’t understand), I get thrown. Today, I’m thrown again. Look at this:

05/18/08
Authority: 1,761
Rank: 1,122

05/23/08
Authority: 1,811
Rank: 1,043

05/25/08
Authority: 1,812
Rank: 1,043

05/27/08
Authority: 1,813
Rank: 1,874

***UPDATE***: as per Darren’s comment above it jumped back down. But why?

Authority: 1,817
Rank: 1,032

So, my blog rank just hopped 840 down. I just lost ground by 840 other blogs. Meanwhile, the authority is pretty much the same.

Does that mean over 800 people got their blog fairy wings ahead of me? How does that work?

Interestingly, Mitch Joel has his own questions about Technorati this morning.

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  • noticed the same thing about 15 minutes ago. I noticed that many of the blogs ranked in the top 100 actually have rankings in the hundreds when you click through to their actual pages.....

    Actually - I just checked it again now as I write this and things look back to normal in the top 100... perhaps they are having some issues today?
  • yeah - looks like it's righted itself - I now see you with a rank of 1,031.

    some sort of glitch
  • Technorati is about as consistent as twitter's uptime. I track technorati rankings for a few clients (and more-than-occasionally for my blog) and have found these arbitrary fluctuations happen throughout the day.

    I've seen both authority and rank change back and forth in the matter of hours. Probably a problem with multiple databases, but regardless: it's annoying.
  • Supplement:

    Technorati is yet another useless metric.

    What metric do you actually care about?

    Subscribers to a newsletter? Loans closed? Technorati is meaningless not because it's inaccurate but because it doesn't do anything actionable for you. Will it make you money, build your community, improve the world? Nope.
  • Chris,

    I appreciate this column. I asked myself the same question and I'm not sure my authority is on a measurable scale.

    And at the end of the day, the answer came down to what the previous commenter said. "Technorati is meaningless not because it's inaccurate, but because it doesn't do anything actionable for you."

    Quibbling a bit with syntax, I think its inaccuracy leads to it being inactionable. And even if accurate, like he says, can you translate authority into payment or influence?

    Thanks again. And thanks for the newsletter link/notice this morning.
  • I'm sure you can buy or trade favors for a higher ranking, there's no law against 'cheating' on an arbitrary scale is there?
  • Never really understood the Technorati rankings. They do seem to be wildly variable, and therefore meaningless. I'd stopped looking at it entirely until you reminded me of its existence with the post!

    As an example, I just hit refresh on my own blog's page on Technorati. My rank went from 460,000 to 520,000. For a page refresh. That just makes no sense. Authority I guess is a worthwhile measure, but even so I've little real interest in technorati any more.
  • Allison Blass
    Well, I'm not entirely sure this is the correct answer because I don't work for Technorati, but from what I've read:

    Authority = the number of links you have received in the past 6 months. Probably why the number doesn't move very much.

    Ranking = the number of links you have received as compared to every other blog that Technorati tracks. So, if there is a sudden surge of links to other blogs, it might cause your blog to fall in the rankings, but not in the authority, because the number of blogs linked to you is still the same.

    That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. If anyone else can verify this theory, I would appreciate it!
  • I have noticed that the authority jumps around, alot! Once i got a rank of zero meaning i was the most discussed site ever according to them! I view technorati as a discussion site rather than a traffic site but there is an obvious correlation between the two.
  • To answer one of the questions, I'm not sure the measure, but it's closer to Penn's answer. (My esteemed PodCamp colleague, Christopher S. Penn , that is).

    In the end, the metrics you need to track are results. But will the web ever come up with a tool that gives us at least a *little* bit of comfort? Where's the FDIC for the web?
  • I've mourned the loss of Technorati long ago. Used to be a daily user, but I realized around 5 months ago that the rankings are now worthless, there is no method to its madness, and there is no validity at all.

    I now use a combo of 5 or so metrics in order to determine a blog's "authority," with Technorati merely "assisting" me in blog discovery.
  • Liz
    I wouldn't obsess about it. There are plenty of other things to worry about in the big scheme of things.
  • To further complicate matters, it seems like T'rati goes through cycles during which they just flat out don't reflect new links in certain blogs' authority numbers. Two weeks ago, I was adding links and gaining "authority" - this week I'm still adding links but my authority number and ranking both seem to be on the decline (e.g., T'rati is dropping off my old links without adding in the new, or so it would seem.)

    There is no way to even predict how Technorati will behave anymore - but like you, I still keep an eye on the numbers. Old habits die hard.

    G
  • At least most of you seem to have a Technorati ranking. I have none, and it's telling me my authority for my blogs is an 8 for one and a six for the other. Not good when ooe considers one of my blogs has been up for four years now. I will say, though, that I just joined it last year, but that then tells me that your blog only matters if you join them, kind of like Alexa.
  • Since I've been basing the Top 25 on TRati for a year or so, I've followed how Technorati tracks a lot of blogs.

    The rankings do tend to fluctuate early and often. The best way to use it is to watch how it trends over time. The earlier 1,800 rank was no doubt a hiccup.

    As for authority, the problem is that some blogs are rarely updated. Church of the Customer literally hasn't been updated in months. I can't remember if they have been updated this year, actually.

    Keep in mind that Technorati also doesn't track links to your blog from Twitter. But on the flipside, it does track links to your Twitter account. Chris here's the link for yours:

    http://www.technorati.com/blogs/www.twitter.com...
  • ...and still no resolve. I guess we'll all have to keep hitting that refresh button and hope for the best.
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