Technorati - The Word On My Street

Earlier this year, I signed up to participate in a group writing project on social media , created by Vivien at Inspiration Bit. I wondered about the medium, my low rank (sniff, sniff), how it’s working for people out there, how important it truly is in terms of measuring your position in the great blogosphere.

And now, the results:

Simon of Yeepage Journal was kind enough to provide 2 highly informative posts, one of which addressed the purpose of Technorati and how it works. Here is an excerpt:

“What is Technorati?
Think of it like Google but they only search in blogs, Google searches for information on blogs and other websites where as Technorati searches for in blogs, approximately 71 million currently.
Probably the biggest thing between Google and Technorati is Google takes a few days to register any information where as Technorati has the information ready in minutes. So Technorati has advantages over Google.

How does Technorati Ranking Work?
Technorati ranks all the blog in the internet, from there they search for all the other blogs that link back to that blog, therefore the more links you can get back to your blog the higher your ranking. You may like to look at the here to see more about ranking but basically it says that I link will be counted for a total of 180 days, so if that site mentions your link again the 180 days will be reset.”

But what do people think about Technorati?

Some of my friends, active bloggers in the know about social media, responded to my Facebook query by stating:

Mhairi Petrovic:

“Technorati drives me mental. It doesn’t ping my site when it should despite the autopings being set up right and its a nightmare to navigate. I spend some time a while back trying to work it all out but have given up…. My landing page which isn’t a blog has a much higher rating than my actual blog – who knows why that is (if you do let me know!).”

Tod Maffin:

“Technorati is completely irrelevant to anything I do.”

Phillip Jeffrey:

“I remember when I used to add the special HTML code so that my blog entry could be found be technorati. I thought “how will people know I exist if they can’t find my blog”. Now I don’t care because I share my blog entries with my RSS feed in google reader, through twitter, jaiku, Facebook, etc. Technorati is soo 2005.”

However, Technorati remains a critical medium in some respects. I came across the Inc article about the relevance of blogs, “More than Idle Chatter”, (and part of a series on social media) – which concluded with the following bit of advice:

“To figure out which blogs related to your industry are getting the most traffic, go to Technorati and BlogPulse, two sites that rank blogs in terms of their traffic.”

And so I am certain the second post Simon sent in (entitled: “How to improve your Technorati ranking”) will prove useful:

“As mentioned in my first post, Technorati is basically links to other blogs. Therefore that what is required, but what’s the best way to go about it?
Use the D-list [link] which was discussed in an earlier post, sound familiar cause it was in an article regarding Google PageRank [link]. Therefore you can use the list to improve your PageRank and get links back which will boost your Technorati ranking too. Two Bird one stone….But please leave a good post on their blog, nobody likes a poor comment and they may delete it.

Generally be active on other peoples sites, this can be done by leaving posts on their site, many will return favour and view your site and they may if they enjoy your post link back too you. An excellent way is to join communities like MyBlogLog [link]where many people have exposure to each others blogs.

Start a link exchange program on your blog, basically it’s a link to me and I will link too you program. This can be done by clicking on a person fav to Technorati button within there blog and the author will then return the favour back after. Click my Fav button below to be add my blog.”

Kriz Cpec also responded with his post “Secrets of Using Blogorati” in which he made several points including:

“People who blog want more visitors. More blog reactions/authorities means more other bloggers are linking to your blogs, hence increases a blog’s exposure and number of new visitors.The importance of knowing who links to my blog, apart from knowing who have read my stuff and their views relating to what I wrote, is to understand why are there those links. With this understanding, I can change my blogging strategy accordingly.

So far, nearly a hundred percent of blog reactions directed here are a result of the blog project I participated in.

So the first thing I have learnt is what every blogger already knew: joining in blog projects will at least result in getting more visitors regardless of whether they will come back or not.

The second thing is what I assume fewer people have noticed – managing to get more reactions in a shorter time span help boasts a blog authority considerably. This blog is a live example.

…
As a footnote: Although I would be very much merrier if people come not solely because of that project entry, it does attract new visitors who may browse other entries as well.”

So there you have it – the word on the (well, my) street about Technorati.

(Oh & by the way my Technorati rank has, in fact, increased in the past few months – from 14 to 53. While I can see that group writing project has brought a few people my way, I think the increase perhaps the boost can be attributed to more people linking to my site and posts due to increased exposure from my articles on OneDegree, increased blogging activity, participation in a blog carnival, and the fact that I meet people often.)

Feel free to read the results of the other participants:

• del.icio.us. host: aaron stroud from on financial success
• facebook. host: ina from inspiring wear
• flickr & zooomr. host: brian auer from epic edits
• twitter and LinkedIn. host: isabella mori from change therapy and alphablogs
• stumbleupon, youtube, myspace. host: karen zara from a1-fan-fun
• sphinn. host simonne from all tips and tricks
• second life. host dandellion from metaverse
• mixx, netscape, squidoo. host: pearl from fresh perspectives
• sk*rt, blogging zoom, bvibes. host: jhs from colloquium
• digg, reddit: vivien at inspirationbit

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