Technorati Doesnt Count Microblogs

August 28, 2008 · Comments

Something Mack Collier just said rang a bell in my head: Technorati doesn’t count services like Twitter, Friendfeed, Plurk, Identi.ca, etc, as valid sources of traffic for a blog. Meaning, for the dozens of people who say that they find something interesting and share the link on Twitter, none of that goes towards whether a blog is authoritative.

Does that actually make sense? If we’re shifting as a user base into using services like Facebook, Twitter, and Jaiku more frequently (okay, not Jaiku), why wouldn’t Technorati, the current reigning source of “authority” of blogs on the web, count these sources?

Has Technorati become the Alexa of measurement?

Update: I guess Alexa counts FireFox now, too. Again, if you have the bar installed. Thanks for the update. (Note: Alexa, as far as I know, only counts users of the IE browser with the Alexa toolbar installed in its ratings of who visits your website, versus Compete and others who count much more.)

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  • Chris, You are wrong. Take a look, it is for FX too

    http://www.alexa.com/site/download/
  • Hi Chris - I think the issue goes deeper than traffic regarding authority. (Steve Rubel comments here: http://www.micropersuasion.com/2007/07/a-new-sy... and we met further with a group to discuss...) You and Mack are right on, the problem IMO is that a free multi-metric service doesn't exist...the approach of the "Power 150" list may be closest to the solution today.
  • well, I think technorati works partially off trackbacks and pings (could be wrong there). I know that blogs don't pick up on twitter mentions like normal trackbacks would. So it's a bigger techo issue - when my blog doesn't do that, I'm not able to keep a record of the whole conversation with my original post - just the snippets via other blogs.

    Which, of course, is a bummer!
  • aside from the many issues people are having of late with technorati (FIR podcast has been talking about this), there is an added issue of tinyurl redirecting links. I'm not an engineer or a programmer, but from what I understand, tinyurl redirection makes twitter very difficult to manage from an automated social media intel perspective.
  • @Peter (with the great content lately) - Well, I can handle using PowerAge, but then, I hope someone clones the methodology for other verticals.
  • Joe Thornley wrote a good post about technorati's shortcomings yesterday: http://propr.ca/2008/technorati-and-me

    He sums it up well: "...why spend the time setting up and reviewing search results from a second service that has proven itself so unreliable?

    And as I have come to doubt the completeness of Technorati’s search results, I’ve grown ever more reluctant to place any reliance on Technorati Authority."
  • That'll put an awfully heavy load on Technorati. Sometimes links get retweeted by spam accounts and I don't think Technorati wants to bother with implementing a filter for Twitter spam accounts. It's already a hassle for Twitter alone.

    In essence, I guess I'm saying that it doesn't bother me very much that Technorati doesn't count such links. There's too much behind it all and it can get rather confusing trying to keep up with these services.
  • Alexa doesn't use the toolbar traffic anymore to get its ranking. http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/16/alexa-over...
  • Joe Thornley wrote a good post on Technorati's problems: http://propr.ca/2008/technorati-and-me

    He sums it up well: "...I am throwing in the towel on Technorati. I no longer receive benefits that justify the time to go to the site and conduct a search. Google blog search reliably provides me with more complete results. So, why spend the time setting up and reviewing search results from a second service that has proven itself so unreliable?

    And as I have come to doubt the completeness of Technorati’s search results, I’ve grown ever more reluctant to place any reliance on Technorati Authority."
  • Hi Chris,

    Apparently there are many ways to react to a blog post. I wrote about more than few of them in here: What is a blog reaction these days?http://usingit.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/what-is-a-blog-reaction-these-days/
    After using Google Alerts for my blog's name and link, for some time now, I can see how much is going under Technorati's radar today.
    I still think that, relatively, they do point out the best bloggers out there. I also believe and hope that their crawler will get to this someday.
    An interesting question is how to measure the success for a sole micro-blogger (life streamer) that has no blog? Can I "claim" my Twitter account as a "blog" to track reaction so a service can rank it?

    Keren
  • I'm not so sure about Technorati not counting Twitter. My Twitter page frequently has a higher Technorati rank than my blog. Maybe I'm missing something here...
  • @Pistachio - Laura, To the best of my knowledge Technorati counts blog post that refer to your twitter page. It does not count tweets that refer to your own blog.
    Yet, this is interesting. I did not know that you can claim your Twitter home page in Technorati! I learn new thing every day:)
    Keren
  • It seems more and more that Technorati is losing its relevance. It appears as if they're trying to get ahead of the technology curve, but they just keep falling further behind.

    If they do become irrelevant, who will capture the flag from them?

    Darrin
  • julien
    fyi, i think Alexa buys data from ISPs now the same way Compete does.
  • Technorati seemed like it was helpful for a new blog, at least getting you started. Lots of so called "blog search engines" are not as good for the health of your blog but are mainly out for their own advertising revenues and performing a wallet transplant.
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