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Technorati Sucks, but Friends Rule!

How long have you fiddled with Technorati on your blog? You claim your blog, get the spiffy widget running, build up a fan base, tag all your posts, etc. What do you get in return?

NOTHING

Yes, I’m exaggerating a little. But let me make my point. Technorati just isn’t worth the trouble.

Aside from initial setup, Technorati has other problems. For months now, Technorati has had problems with blogs being “flagged for review.” Just look at the threads in their support forums where blogs aren’t being updated properly.

And submitting a support ticket gets no response. Technorati doesn’t seem to care about their users. It really is a sad excuse for a user-oriented service.

Stats speak

I think Legal Andrew is a decent example of a mid-tier blog. So my stats can illustrate what we’re getting back from Technorati.

This is a graph of referrals to Legal Andrew from August 1, 2006 to June 3, 2007. As you can see from the last line (red arrow), Technorati refers less than 1% of my traffic!

Honestly, I can’t see why us bloggers care about Technorati at all. Maybe you guys see more value in it, but I really don’t.

Friends are great!

To end on a positive note, I want to point out the great importance of making real connections in the blogosphere: friends.

As you can see from this chart, my top 14 referrers include several friends, which amount to 4.5% of total referrals. After going through my top 50 referrers, I found that 7% of my traffic comes from friends.

Should I spend time screwing around with Technorati, or should I try to make another friend?

[tags]technorati, friends, google analytics, statistics[/tags]

>>If you need legal help, feel free to call Andrew: (540) 318-5824.

What next?

June 3, 2007 by Andrew Flusche

Comments

13 Responses to “Technorati Sucks, but Friends Rule!”

Mark Shead
June 4th, 2007

Pretty much the only thing I use Technorati for is indirectly in wordpress. I believe the dashboard page shows you who links to your blog based on information it pulls from Technorati, but I might be wrong.

Other than that, I spend about an hour each year just checking it out to see if anything has changed that might be useful to me.
Peter
June 4th, 2007

Intresting perspective. It seems when you boil away all the hype that relationships are the bottom line for linking and good writing for search engines.
Andrew Flusche
June 4th, 2007

Hi Mark,

Thanks for pointing out something important - inbound links. That is one valuable thing we’re getting from Technorati. Learning about inbound links definitely helps foster and build relationships.

Thanks for the comment!
Andrew
Andrew Flusche
June 4th, 2007

Peter,

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Success = relationships + SEO. Maybe that’s boiling it down a bit too much, but it illustrates the point.

Take care,
Andrew
ProSeThoughts
June 4th, 2007

Andrew, what do you use for your stats? I like the graphs.

I can’t tell where my referrals come from because the majority of the hits type my URL directly in their browser, so they must already know about my site and don’t do searches to get to it.
Brett McKay
June 4th, 2007

Yeah, Technorati does suck. I was thinking about this yesterday as I was trying to figure out how to get it to like my blog, but then I realized it probably wasn’t worth it because I really don’t get referrals from them. Too bad so many people emphasize your Technorati authority.
Andrew Flusche
June 5th, 2007

Hi ProSe,

The graphs above are from Google Analytics. It’s free, very detailed, and the new interface is really slick. For day-to-day stats, I rely on FeedBurner Standard Stats.

Direct traffic is good. That means people are looking for you!

Andrew
Andrew Flusche
June 5th, 2007

Brett,

You’re about Technorati Authority. Sadly, it’s one of the key metrics we use to evaluate each other. That is pretty pathetic, really.

But I wonder if Authority matters that much once you have a decent amount. If nobody links to a blog (zero Authority), I’m skeptical there’s anything good there. But what real difference is 100 vs. 300 or even 900? Somebody likes it, right?

Andrew
Roger Anderson
June 6th, 2007

As a relatively new writer to the blogosphere it is interesting to see if you are making any progress. Technorati does that to some extent. Now that people are using their rating to estimate value it becomes more valuable. as far as receiving links - I rarely use the technorati links. More often than not I have subscribed to the blogs that interest me and I have read my Google reader updates already.

I find new blogs more often by links in posts from people I trust. Sometimes I scroll the blogroll but that’s a rarity. This is why allowing links in posts can be useful. I understand it invites spam but the cost seems minimal.
Andrew Flusche
June 6th, 2007

Hi Roger,

You’re right that Technorati can help see if you’re making progress. For us statsaholics, it’s one more fun number to watch.

Thanks for the great comment,
Andrew
FrÃ©dÃ©ric Panek
June 10th, 2007

Thank you for this interesting insight into Technoraty.

I am also fairly new to the blogosphere and as such I have relied on widely used metrics. I slowly am learning to discriminate the good from the bad and the useful from the useless.
When my mood is down because of poor stats, I remember that I write for my own passion and for the passion of those that read me regardless of their numbers!

As such I agree with you. Forget numbers and remember why you write and whom you write for. If your intention is right, there are no reasons for you to fail.

Sucess is a journey, not a destination!
Andrew Flusche
June 11th, 2007

Frederic,

I love your last line. That’s very insightful!

Andrew
Turnip Style Dot Com
September 18th, 2007

Technorati Sucks…

I know that I am not the only one that thinks that Technorati sucks as of late. I have to say that since they changed the look of their site it seems to have all gone down hill.
……