Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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January 8, 2007

Congratulations on the Tag Page at Technorati! Is it Our Turn Now?

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:49 am

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The Exciting New Tag Pages Go Live Today!

When you go to Technorati this morning — oh you’re one who’s stopped going? — well go on over. They have exciting news! David Sifry has announced the new and updated Tag Pages in honor of the second anniversary of Technorati tags. At the Technorati weblog, where he makes the announcement, David explains the beauty of both the tag pages and the value of tags.

Technorati Tag Pages

And, with the launch of our new Tag Pages, we’ve improved the way that you can check out the Live Web, too. A Technorati Tag Page shows you everything in the known universe (blogs, videos, photos, podcasts, music, people) tagged with your topic or interests, all in one place. [ . . . ]

The beauty of tags is that they’re metadata: data about data. What does that mean? Tags actually describe their subject, as opposed to, say, keywords, which just occur within them.

Is It Our Turn Now?

I’m delighted with your new Tag Pages, Dave. Seems every time I turn around there’s another new feature or an improved whistle to one. I bet it feels grand to be growing and winning technology awards. I just wonder how many customers asked for this one, because the Technorati users that I know have more basic things at the top of their wishlist.

Every morning and throughout the day, I play a game I call Technorati Roulette. I get links on posts, and I check in. There’s no predictability to whether my link count will go up, go down, or even change. I might have the fun of seeing my archive chronology suddenly rearrange time in some alien fashion.

Every time Technorati does a reset, upgrade, or anything new, I lose 20 or more links, just like that! I’ve learned to expect it every weekend. It’s a fact of Technorati life.

You might say that’s because Technorati only tracks 6 months of links. That argument doesn’t work. That might work if my archives went back 6 months but they only go back 60 days!! And there was no weekend in the history of this blog that I took on as many links as I’ve been losing in one fell swoop. So that math doesn’t work.

Things at Technorati I have been broken since five months before I wrote Dear Niall Kennedy and David Sifry at Technorati. That would be about 16 months now.

Here are my problems today:
Janice does her best to address what’s going on. The engineers look. The issues remain. There are plenty of emails with screenshots about the problems. Sorry to do this out loud, but behind the scenes hasn’t worked. Maybe this way some folks reading will feel they are not alone.

That’s just me though. What about the folks I know who haven’t been indexed for over 100 days? What about the folks who can’t get indexed at all? What about the folks who can’t claim their blogs? How important is an improved Tag Page to them?

David, I’m sorry to rain on your parade. But c’mon. Where are you looking? It’s our content that you’re indexing. We’re stakeholders in what you do.

Sooner or later, someone like Blog Pulse is going to provide a service that works and folks will go there. We’ll go there because it’s more reliable than Technorati roulette and because it’s more fun than writing this kind of post to a guy that I really like.

When is it our turn? When is our wishlist important enough?

– ME “Liz” Strauss

UPDATE: WHEN I PUBLISHED THIS POST I DROPPED 10 MORE LINKS. I CAN’T QUIT LAUGHING ABOUT THE TIMING OF THAT.

UPDATE: THANKS DAVID, JANICE, AND THE ENGINEERING TEAM FOR RESTORING MY LINK COUNT. I APPRECIATE IT. :p

Related articles
Put Your 2Cents In–What’s Technorati Worth–Without Janice?
Technorati Has a NEW Home Page–My Blogs Are Stuck Again





Filed under Successful Blog, Tech/Stats |




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49 Comments to “Congratulations on the Tag Page at Technorati! Is it Our Turn Now?”

  1. January 8th, 2007 at 9:05 am
    Mark Goodyear said

    Amen.

  2. January 8th, 2007 at 9:12 am
    ME Strauss said

    Mark,
    I like your point of view. You articulate it well. :)

  3. January 8th, 2007 at 9:40 am
    Renée said

    No Amen for me!

    I could care less whatever improvements they make if their support system SUCK!

    I could not claim my blogs for almost a year now, submitted at least 20 tickets and still no reply nor the problem fixed.

    Irony is… those splogs scratch my content are able to claim their blogs with 50 links linking to their so-called posts (written by me or someone else).

    Technorati Sucks Big Time, and I will say it again and again and again even it tarnishes my “Nice Girl” image.

  4. January 8th, 2007 at 9:45 am
    Renée said

    Correction…it should be splogs scrape my content, not scratch my content!

  5. January 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Renée!
    I think that’s what Mark was saying Amen to. You and Mark agree.

    Chartreuse used to say never forget your core customers they made you who you are. They are ones who will get in their car and drive 200 miles to hear you band play.

    What good is a nice girl image if you can’t listened to or get anything done? That’s like turning back the clock to when women didn’t count at all. After all this post is me doing just that, speaking out loud what needs to be said, so why shouldn’t you.

    Telling the truth might not be easy, but not telling the truth isn’t nice either. Folks would would be saying exactly what I said here. I’m only saying it out loud.

  6. January 8th, 2007 at 9:57 am
    Renée said

    Now that I say Amen to you, Liz.

    I don’t know why every time I see someone write a post on Technorati, I assume they write praises.

    The word Technorati always fumes me so much!

    Liz, you still my pal. Sorry about the sudden outrage. Geez, I gotta control my emotion a little. =)

  7. January 8th, 2007 at 9:59 am
    ME Strauss said

    No worries, Renée.
    Like I said in the post. We’re all stakeholders in what they do. We’ve been patiently waiting our turn for a darn long time now. :)

  8. January 8th, 2007 at 10:21 am
    David Sifry said

    Liz,

    Point well made. We’re constantly working on fixing the underlying issues that are giving you unhappiness, and some of those things take more time - they aren’t a simple, easy fix. I’ll keep you informed and updated on things as they continue to improve…

    And thanks for your honest feedback.

    Dave

  9. January 8th, 2007 at 10:29 am
    ME Strauss said

    Thanks for coming out, Dave.
    But I gotta say. . . how much time do you need when something’s a priority?

    Underlying issues . . . are foundational. Foundations bring down entire structures.

    These are not just my issues. I’m an example, not an isolated case.

    I want to be your biggest. I always have. You know that.

  10. January 8th, 2007 at 10:40 am
    Tony D. Clark said

    Thanks for bringing some more attention to this, Liz. It’s exciting (for us non-A listers anyway) to see new links pop up either through the WordPress dash, or on Technorati directly. Having to come back a few hours later and see those new links wiped away is SOOOO frustrating. I know the 180-day thing and that makes sense. But these are NEW links.

    As someone who’s worked in the software field (and still does a lot of the time) I know how difficult these things can be from a developer’s perspective. But since a Technorati rating is such a core thing to a lot of blogs, and it’s the foundation of their whole service, I hope it goes to the top of the fix list.

    The developer in me can sympathize, but the user in me just wants my links back :)

  11. January 8th, 2007 at 11:23 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Tony!
    Thanks for saying that! It’s exactly what I was trying to express — that we have a stake in what they do.

    As product person, I can sympathize too, but somethings don’t get fixed ever, if you don’t say something loud and clear. And sometimes even then. . .

    In a situation like this a company doesn’t want to leave itself open for the guy who can provide the solution, they’re not providing.

  12. January 8th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
    HART (1-800-HART) said

    haha .. well, you know *I’M* not gonna ask for any technorati fix .. last time I did they removed me from their index. Some help.

  13. January 8th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hey HART,
    I understand completely! That’s totally the right response where you are. :)

  14. January 8th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
    Rick Cockrum said

    I’ve been fortunate. I’ve never had a problem claiming a blog. I’ve never had a problem getting indexed.

    It is a bit odd seeing the number of links going up and down, with new links disappearing and appearing depending on the phase of the moon as far as I can tell, and sometimes seeing Technorati claim I have no links at all.

  15. January 8th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Rick,
    Technorati link counts are little bit like a college professor who grades while he’s on drugs. :) Up, down, up, oops missed one altogether!

  16. January 8th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
    Tim Singleton said

    Well, I guess I will put these guys at the back of the line. When I am still learning how to get my blog up formatted correctly I sure ain’t got time to decipher these guys rules every time I update.

    I mean, what’s the point if you have to be a programmer in THEIR specific set of rules in order to get indexed? …and it would appear from what is written here that the rules change? What’s that all about?

  17. January 8th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Tim,
    It’s not that the rules change it’s that the system is buggy and when they update or have an outage, links get lost and drop.

  18. January 8th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
    Sheila Scarborough said

    Yeah, I’m with you on this, Liz.

    I check my Technorati ranking only for a VERY general feel for how I’m doing, and I also wonder at how the numbers and links go up, down and sideways plus disappear and then reappear.

    Glad to see that Dave at least stopped by and tried to address the issues, though.

    Sheila

  19. January 8th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Sheila,
    How easily we can get removed from our core customers when we get heads down and involved in the work we’re doing. I know I’ve done it. Guilty.

    But we just can’t forget that our customers are people who have dreams too. :)

    I’ll pass your comment along, Sheila.

  20. January 8th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
    Mike said

    I haven’t had time or desire to look at my links in months and my life has gone on fine.

    Thanks for reminding me to go look.

    I hope I’m still there, but if I’m not, I would have never known and would have just blogged away in the dark.

    If that’s true and I’m not there, yet my readership grows weekly … should I be mad or glad ?

  21. January 8th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
    Mike said

    Just checked, Liz. As usual, all my comments go into Akismet hell.

    Should I be mad or glad that b5 hasn’t fixed that after a year or so ?

    That’s why I don’t bother commenting here much anymore. But I still read every post.

  22. January 8th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
    Martin said

    Once again it’s why keep on adding all these little extras when the foundation isn’t still set.

    They’ve been having problems off and on for far too long now.

    I’ve also noticed recently that Google Blog Search has overtaken Technorati in number of searches.

    And with the mainstream getting into blogging at a huge rate I think Technorati has only a little window of opportunity to get it right before people will walk away from it.

  23. January 8th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Martin,
    I thought of you when I wrote this and wondered whether you might drop by. I’m glad to see you. :)

    Have you been to Blog Pulse lately? They’re very close with their tools. They’re just not updating right — sound familiar? :)

  24. January 8th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mike!
    I don’t know about you, but I’m fried about your comments in Askimet and those of two others.

    When it comes to T’rat’i, I suppose it doesn’t matter, unless you’re part of system that judges performance by where you land there.

  25. January 8th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
    HART (1-800-HART) said

    Martin - it’s funny that you mention that about Google Blog search .. Wordpress needs to somehow get that embedded into the software. Maybe it’s the popularity of Wordpress that helped cause this madness? Now, when you are in the dashboard of your wordpress blog, it automatically defaults to …
    http://www.technorati.com/search/insert-site-here/?partner=wordpress

    I wish I could see the links to my blogs in google .. doesn’t google partner with everybody?

  26. January 8th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hey HART!
    I’ve been sitting here thinking about your comment. That seems to be the only place where Google hasn’t gone. Why don’t they have ads there and why aren’t they in there? It must because of Blogger. SixApart and WordPress must not want them.

  27. January 8th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
    Mike said

    By the way Liz, after I went to technorati, I found that some of our blogs are wonked, just like they were when I quit going over there.

    My blog shows some kind of MySQL error … blah, blah, blah

  28. January 8th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hey, Mike,
    Time to shake the cage again. We just also sent another pass to WordPress about Akismet. You’re a special one. :)

    How lucky can one guy get?

  29. January 8th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
    Mike said

    Thanks for the effort :-)

    Can you email me an addy for someone, like Janice, who can fix that mess they have made of our blogs… again.

  30. January 8th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
    Robyn McMaster said

    I’m with you, Liz, I’ve been wondering why Technorati cannot give an accurate count. One day I’ll have links and next day they’re gone from the face of the map. With a system like that, I’m not sure this count is accurate at all.

    You said it with pretty good tone, Liz. You spoke for many of us. Thanks.

  31. January 8th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
    ann michael said

    what can I say that hasn’t already been said!?

    Thanks Liz. This is sooooo frustrating. I get all excited about links and then they’re gone. Or I go to my StatCounter page and realize I’m getting traffic from a link that isn’t on Technorati.

    Technorati is like an abusive relationship - one minute their sweet and attentive and the next minute you get hit upside the head!!!

    I really do appreaciate what they do but I’m with everyone else that said - why give us cute little add-ons when there foundational issues that need to be fixed???

  32. January 8th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Robyn,
    I knew when I wrote this I had to speak for myself, but that I wasn’t the only one. Still, I didn’t want to go off on quest, just let them know that it’s been going on awfully long.

    We’re all not sure that anything about the count is accurate, or even fair. Who knows whether some folks are bug-free and some are trouble much worse than we are?

    If only Dave hadn’t said in his post, “here is the page in it’s “glory.” That was the word that made me say, “no.”

  33. January 8th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Ann,
    That here’s link, not, yes, not, yes. Is crazy- making isn’t it? I really do try to predict how my count will change when I refresh the screen. There’s a game in that. I wonder whether we could start a pool or a lottery?

  34. January 8th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Mike,
    The email with that information is already on it’s way to you!

  35. January 9th, 2007 at 5:32 am
    Karin said

    Hi all (11.24am here; cloudy, rainy and stormy)
    Why is it that we all tend to be ‘happy’/'frustrated’ when ranking of your blog/website goes up and down? (I’ve been guilty of that too). Why do statistics on ‘hits’, links etc on various ranking sites keeps us occupied?
    I decided recently that I really shouldn’t care about what ranking some site gives me; I see that as a reward - higher ranking than yesterday - for me; while I should concern myself more aobut the ‘reward’ my readers/visitors get from my blog/website.
    It’s more important to me that readers respond (with comments, track-backs etc) or visitors take action (email me, download brochures, call me, visit my shop).
    Like my blog, I started with just two frequent commenters - the two friends who encouraged me to start the Kiss2 blog, so thanks again Mike and Fred for opening a whole new world for me) and 3 months later I have more and more different commenters (and ‘dedicated’ readers - because Feedburner shows me, oh - that’s another stat, sorry ;-)).
    Sorry for the long post, but the ’soft’ statistics IMHO are the more important ones than whatever ranking site says my ‘hard’ stats are.

  36. January 9th, 2007 at 5:38 am
    Chris Cree said

    The other thing that is frustrating is subscribing to a Technorati search. They’ve pulled the RSS button from the search pages but it is still there if your browser can auto-discover it. Just be ready because the feed constantly shows old links as new feed entries so it can clog up your reader.

    My link count has been porpoising a bunch lately. I thought with the z-list meme going around that T’rati just got wise and started flushing those links out of their link count. But maybe they just aren’t counting right anyway.

  37. January 9th, 2007 at 5:51 am
    Martin said

    Liz - Blog Pulse? I had a look at them a while back and they didn’t leave me confident. I guess I’ll check them out again.

    Hart - I think Google is ripe to take this on and do it well. I think Technorati may just be passed its used by date. It was an okay tool for us early adopters but hasn’t really caught on with the growing mainstream.

    All I really want is a basic tracking/tagging tool that I can quickly utilize for research to see who’s talking about the same issues as me. Presently it’s unreliable.

    Indexing and tagging should be Technorati’s core feature. Everything else is just bells n’ whistles.

  38. January 9th, 2007 at 6:11 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Karin,
    First, no worries about long comments. A comment here should be exactly as many words as it takes to say what you need to say so that we understand you. Feel free to use the space. We’re not going to run out of it. :)

    I don’t know that I care about my ranking . . . or that most folks do, especially once they realize that the ranking number represents more than one blog at that level. But I like to know about my links because it tells me who I’ve been connected with. It’s like a digital photo album and my report card rolled together.

    As a business person, I believe in measures of all a kinds, not just one, because I believe all measures are biased. So I want as many as possible to build from them a complete picture — my own version of a 360 degree profile. It’s probably a throwback from my teaching, where everything was formal AND informal assessment.

    Is there an emotional attachment? You betcha! Whether it’s the spreadsheet for a company that’s growing, or the link count for my blog, it represents the work I’m doing and gives a place to benchmark how I’m growing.

    I think we all need something like that. Subscriber counts aren’t enough or any more accurate. They fluctuate more and can feel just as, or even more personal.

    Just a bunch of thoughts here, early on a Tuesday morning. :)

  39. January 9th, 2007 at 6:16 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Chris,
    Dave sent me an email yesterday after Tony’s comment. He said that he and his engineers are watching this thread and that the link bug is their biggest problem.

    I truly believe that Technorati doesn’t ever do anything aggressive to alter link counts beyond making calls on spam blogs.

    It’s the choice to move forward without settling the foundation, and to continue doing so that exacerbates the problem — put that in a context of millions of blogs growing daily and overwhelming issues seem the logical result.

  40. January 9th, 2007 at 6:19 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hey Martin.
    Do one thing and do it well, and the world will love you. . . .

    Indexing and tagging should be Technorati’s core feature. Everything else is just bells n’ whistles.

    Just ask the basic black dress. :)

  41. January 9th, 2007 at 6:19 am
    Karin said

    Hi Liz

    As a business person - no, make that Capricorn business person ;-) I totally agree with measuring all kinds of things: I’m an ‘addicted’ number-cruncher.
    But, my spreadsheets contain (as they should IMHO) more conversion rates from suspects to prospects to customers to ‘ambassadors’ than they list how well my blog and websites are doing, because those real cenversion rates is my benchmark.

    That my blog and websites are a great tool to get suspects sooner turned into porspects (i.e. taking action) is first of all a must for our business and secondly a benchmark of how well we’re doing.

    But I totally agree with the emotional sentiment you mention, guilty ;-)

  42. January 9th, 2007 at 6:28 am
    ME Strauss said

    Ah, but my Capricorn business person, you just made my point . . . *she grins her Cancer business grin*

    *she uses her American TV Western voice*
    “Capricorn business person speak with quantitative tongue about spreadsheets.”

    Conversion rates should be ONE but not your ONLY benchmark of how your online sites are doing. You need the qualitative too — the intagibles that spreadsheets won’t be showing.

    I know you know that (but someon reading doesn’t). Sales is hollow and short lasting without customer service, and customer service is hard to fit on most spreadsheets. You just can’t quantify a smile or a satisfied reader. In the same way, you can’t quantify relationships with other bloggers, but link counts help let you know that you still have some.

    Head and heart together.

  43. January 9th, 2007 at 7:17 am
    Karin said

    Again in agreement with (again) a side-note ;-)
    Links counts help, but I fear some see link counts (rise and fall) as the main benchmark of blogs and sites, not all the other and important onces.
    Hence my question/thinking aloud on why we find these ranking sites so, lets say, intriguing.
    Must be our ‘human competitive trait’ ;-)

  44. January 9th, 2007 at 7:23 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Karin,
    I know that some folks strive for the A List. But it’s not the world I know.

    Most bloggers I know don’t pay attention to how their blog stacks up compared to other blogs. They look to see how their blog compares today to how their own blog was yesterday. And they look to see who’s new that has discovered them. Then they wander over to leave comment and start a relationship.

    That’s why I don’t of it so much as a ranking or even as competitiveness. :)

  45. January 9th, 2007 at 10:28 am
    MamaDuck said

    Ha, I know, I’m always seeing odd things on my Technorati and for about two weeks it refused to believe that my blog was updated even though I posted at least twice a day during that time. I don’t have time to analyze the silly thing but I haven’t been impressed.

  46. January 9th, 2007 at 10:32 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi MamaDuck!
    It’s sort of like watching a misbehaving child, . . . we can all tell when it’s about to do something big. Bad habits have become noticeable.

  47. January 9th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
    Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - To Dave Sifry, Janice Myint and Technorati said

    [...] see Congratulations on the Tag Page at Technorati! Is it Our Turn Now? [...]

  48. January 10th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
    TagMan said

    How much do you pay Technorati for their service? Seriously. I, too, have been frustrated with Technorati at times. Either posts were dropped or the site was slow. Now, I think it’s too cluttered. They seem to concentrate more on front end changes than back end improvements. But, don’t most software companies?

    How many people complain about not ranking well in Google? Lots. Nobody pays for these services, so what should they expect? Although it must be detrimental for Technorati to get so much negative feedback, it’s also an indicator that they’re leading the pack. If people didn’t care if Technorati was working, that would be a bad sign for them.

    I think an ideal solution would be for one of the Internet titans (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc) to purchase Technorati. That would marry the innovative ideas from Technorati with proven high-traffic infrastructure.

    BTW, if you want a break from worrying about whether or not Technorati is working, click to my site and play a game of Technorati TagMan. And, kudos to Technorati for addressing your comments politely.

  49. January 10th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hey Tagman,
    Welcome, if a company sets out to serve. Then serve is what that company should.

    It’s what I do and no one pays to read this blog. I’ve rapped Google and other’s too.

    If the ethic is free means I don’t have to be good, what kind of world are we building on that?

    BTW, you discount a reasonable argument with your last paragraph — folks would have come to your blog anyway to find out who you are.

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