The Technorati Taskmaster: Is it Worth Appeasing?
November 29th 2007 19:40
Blogging to Please Our Technorati Taskmaster: Is It Worth It?
Lately, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon with Technorati authority and ranking: If you don't happen to be getting enough backlinks to your blog quickly enough--or if the Technorati search bot just doesn't happen to be finding them for some reason--the more often you update, the faster your blog authority and ranking decrease! Isn't that strange? Wouldn't you expect your authority and ranking to increase the more often you update? I would--and it certainly used to--before I hit the 50 K mark, that is. (But, more on that later.) My authority has dropped, of late, from a high of 135 to its present 127--and my ranking has taken a similar dive--despite the fact that I've been updating more frequently than ever.
Well, apparently frequent updates aren't enough to keep the Technorati taskmaster happy. Along with those updates, you need a steady influx of new links to appease the powers that be at the Big T! The funny thing is that I've been visiting quite a few blogs and leaving a lot of comments lately, but most aren't found by the Technorati search bot and those that are, don't seem to count for much, if anything!
I've come to the (perhaps obvious) conclusion that comment links don't carry as much "authority" (or "link juice") as links that are organically integrated into blog posts. This makes sense, of course, since having your link written into a blog post is much more a vote of confidence from the blogger than is the fact that you decided to leave a comment on someone's blog along with the link that's always included. However, you would expect these comment links to count for something, since they are listed among our Technorati Blog Reactions (aka backlinks to our blogs). And you would also expect Technorati to find more of them.
Disillusioned With Technorati: The 50 K Hurdle
I must admit, though, that I'm becoming more than a little disillusioned with Technorati these days. My ranking has lost its luster! My blog authority has left me flat! Twice I have broken the Technorati 50,000 ranking, and when this post goes live, I'll no doubt end up above 50 K once again. I'm seriously considering removing the Technorati authority widget from my blog, because it's so depressing--not to mention embarrassing--to watch my authority steadily declining rather than improving each time I update!
Up to--or rather down to the 50 K point in my Technorati ranking, things went quite smoothly. Whenever I updated, both my authority and my ranking improved. But something happened at about the 50 K point (which I didn't even realize was happening until I'd gotten as low as 43 K + and didn't update for about five days: my ranking shot up (which isn't good) to over 54 K in a single day, requiring me to break 50 K all over again--a slow and painstaking process! (During that period, the same busy-ness that had caused me not to update for five days had also kept me from visiting and leaving many comments on other blogs, so of course my backlink growth-rate stagnated, as well, which contributed to the problem.)
Irony: When Blog Traffic Belies Technorati's Valuation
All this is very ironic, because, during this period, my blog's traffic had been steadily growing--and still is. Though by no means huge, it's basically doubled over the past several months. But, I suppose it only goes to show that no algorithm is perfect. It's virtually impossible to create an algorithm that addresses all components of a blog's value--or at least, no one's doing it.
Alexa addresses the issue of traffic--but only among the users of its own toolbar, which couldn't be much of a reflection of overall blog traffic from all sources and which thus makes the value of Alexa ranking questionable, in my view. Alexa, of course, totally ignores backlinks and frequency of updates, which isn't a problem in itself, but becomes more important because its traffic stats are already skewed by the fact that only one segment of the reading public is involved in compiling them.
As far as I know, Technorati ignores traffic altogether, focusing on backlinks and frequency of updates--though often not even handling these in ways that seem fair or equitable. For example, each time we update, we still (presumably) have the same number of backlinks that we had before updating, and these backlinks had a certain value before we updated. Why do they now lose some of that value simply because we now have one more post on our blogs? Shouldn't our latest post simply add value to our already-existing links since we haven't actually lost any links and have gained a post? That, in my view, would be equitable.
Which Is It, Technorati? Is It Good to Update Often or Isn't It?
Personally, I tend to question the value of a blog ranking service that makes a blogger afraid to update for fear of losing hard-won ranking--thereby effectively providing a disincentive to update frequently. Is it better to update frequently or not? If so, Technorati needs to reassess its algorithm to stop penalizing bloggers who update frequently without amassing huge numbers of backlinks at the same time.
Reassessment: Are Blog Ranking Services Really Relevant?
Many are reevaluating Google in the wake of the current PR fiasco whereby bloggers have had their PR lowered--to as little as 0 (or no PR) in many cases--for so-called link-selling, causing a widespread questioning of the relevance of Google. In the same way, this writer is beginning to reassess the relevance of Technorati. While there's little doubt that many will continue evaluating bloggers based both on Google PR and Technorati ranking--and many by Alexa ranking, as well--which will certainly impact quite a few areas of blogging; I seriously wonder what any of these ranking methods can really mean when they reflect little more than the bias of the particular service whose ranking we happen to be checking.
What Do You Think? Should We Care About Technorati or Other Rankings?
Is Technorati relevant? What about Google? And Alexa? What do you think? If our Technorati ranking or authority drop, should we care? Should we be concerned if Google decides to "steal"--or has already "stolen"--our hard-earned page rank? (I know it's theirs to give and take away, since they gave it in the first place; but we did, after all, work hard for it.) Should we care that our Alexa ranking is based only on one segment of traffic to our sites?
If you have any insight or comments on any of these ranking services, we'd be very interested to hear your thoughts. If you have more to say on the issue than can be conveniently addressed in a comment and would rather write a post about it on your blog, please let us know in a comment and leave us a link to your post. We'd love to read it!
Looking forward to hearing your views,
Jeanne
This is not a sponsored post.
Did you enjoy this post? Have anything to add to the Technorati, Alexa, or Google conversation? We welcome your feedback!
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