R.I.P. Technorati? August 17, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in Blade Runner, blogging, blogs, david sifry, exoplanets, technorati.add a comment
Since the beginning of the blogging era Technorati has been among the best (if not THE BEST) blog search tools.
In recent months Technorati has changed its site and become increasingly irrelevant.
I had hopes that it would turn things around..but that now seems very unlikely.
You see David Sifry – the founding visionary of Technorati has left the building, quit, gonzo – outta here.
Without Sifry at the helm Technorati is a listless ship and one that will continue drifting in obscurity. It’s a sad day indeed. There is nothing wrong with Google’s blog search, i like it alot. But having Technorati as an independent and viable blog search tool was great to have.
Technorati is still alive – apparently – but it’s a shell of its former self.
Domain Mapping With WordPress – Kiss Your Traffic Goodbye (in the short term) July 31, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in b5, babylon 5, blog, blogging, doman, doman mapping, exile, google, technorati, traffic, wordpress.7 comments
It’s been three weeks since we moved from showmescifi.wordpress.com to showmescifi.com – thanks to a WordPress domain mapping feature.
In principal it’s a great idea, a great service and is easily done. We had a small issue for a few hours when we didn’t realize that the existing mail server would no longer work – a friendly wordpress.com support person helped out and now email works (thanks to WordPress and Google Apps).
The only REAL problem for ShowMeSciFi is that since we’ve moved, traffic has been cut by nearly two thirds.
Why is that?
I’d speculate a number of things..i think we lost alot of our Google/Technorati juice for one.
Google and Technorati now treat us like a new site almost – with no history of authority and links.
It’s really quite unfortunate that such a great service can have such a negative affect on readership.
That said – we’re committed to building ShowMeSciFi and continuing to populate with the stuff that SciFi fans care about. Thanks for being part of the journey.
Flash Gordon Teaser Trailer July 12, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in aurra sing, dale arden, Flash Gordon, lightsabers, ming the merciless, psp, Sci Fi, science fiction, scifi, star trek tng, starwars, technorati, YouTube.add a comment
SciFi Channel is finally starting to get a little serious about the new Flash Gordon show which is set to premiere in August.
They’ve now revealed the show’s logo (left), have FINALLY put up a page on their own site with some pics and..
wait for it..
Put up a teaser trailer too!
Yes it has the Queen music and Yes Ming is MERCILESS.
Technorati Authority?!?! May 8, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in blogging, technorati.1 comment so far
Technorati has recently changed the way they calculate blog links and position. It’s something they call ‘Technorati Authority’.
Personally i think they should just be honest and call it Link Farming.
Technorati used to count how many blogs link to another and how many links in total (including multiples from the same blog). Now in their infinite blogging wisdom they’ve decided to only count total number of blogs for a six month period.
It’s an infantile and amateur approach to measuring authority.
Simply counting links as opposed to counting the authority of those links and volume doesn’t prove anything. If ShowMeSciFi is the linked in the Top Blogs listing on WordPress (which it has been numerous times) that should have more ‘authority’ than if it is linked just once in the Top Blogs listing – it should also have more ‘authority’ than if it gets linked on a link farm.
What would make more sense is something along the lines of how Google’s Page Rank works. Using links alone is what killed search relevancy for all other search engines. I’m not sure why Technorati which has such a strong and solid understanding of the blogging world would degrade itself in this way.
Technorati ‘Authority’ does not reward true authority it awards popularity which is something that can be manipulated.
I hope that Technorati is just doing this as an experiment on a path toward a true ‘authority’ metric that accurately reflects both the popularity, the relevance and the actual ‘Authority’ of a blog.
Google Blog Search Now 15 hours Behind Technorati *UPDATED* March 13, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in google, scifi, showmescifi, technorati, wordpress.add a comment
In the continuing series on where ShowMeSciFi.wordpress.com gets indexed on Technorati and Google’s Blog Search…As of 3 PM Eastern on March 13th , Google blog search is 15 hours behind Technorati at indexing this site.
Technorati is currently up to date with indexing the blog while Google’s blog search has not index this site in the past 21 hours. In that time, there have been two stories posted.
According to Technorati they are:
Star Trek The Next Generation Turns 20 which was posted 15 hours ago
and
Make your own Enterprise out of paperclips!
which was posted 4 hours ago.
I’m not sure how to improve the Google Blog Search indexing, they don’t offer a manual ping but if there are any googlers out there with any ideas please comment below.
**UPDATE** as of about 20 minutes after this story was first posted Google Blog Search caught up to Technorati. Thanks Google!!! I’ll keep looking to see what the lag may be on future posts and will report on the relative indexing speed of both.
Technorati now beats Google for indexing Showmescifi March 8, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in blogging, google, technorati, wordpress.2 comments
Barely a month ago I ranted about how Technorati was inferior to Google for indexing wordpress.com sites.
I WAS WRONG (apparently).
My general premise was that Technorati was indexing this (and other wordpress.com sites) not nearly as regularly as Google’s blog search. As of this AM, that’s not the case.
A story posted more than 14 hours ago on ShowMeSciFi.wordpress.com is indexed on Technorati and yet is it not on Google’s blog search. Which for all intents and purposes means that Technorati for this blog at least, may well now be more accurate than Google.
Sure it has alot to do with the regularity of posting. When ShowMeSciFi posts every day, Technorati seems to be indexing this site better, while Google remains relatively constant or lagging.
Regardless, my apologies to Technorati, I shouldn’t have doubted you and keep up the fine work.
Technorati doesn’t like free wordpress.com users February 18, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in blog, blog search, google, news, scifi, technorati.3 comments
There was a time when I though that Technorati was the ultimate blog search tool.
That is until i moved to wordpress.com and realized that Technorati is inferior to Google’s blog search in terms of getting new posts indexed. In fact Technorati in my opinion is so far behind Google in getting wordpress.com indexed that i think that wordpress.com users should avoid Technorati all together.
Allow me to fully explain.
Technorati has a description on it site of how to do automated ping for wordpress. The problem is that it doesn’t work with WordPress.com.
What really alarmed me and showed me how far behind Technorati is – comes from a recent experience where a post of mine was the top post on WordPress.com for the day. Technorati showed inbound links citing my post – but suprisingly the post itself was not listed in content feed for showmescifi.wordpress.com until nearly 12 days later.
I contacted Technorati several times over this period and all i ever got was a form email:
[technorati.com #65651] AutoReply: [Support] Indexing – Last Updated date for my blog has not changed though I ping Inbox
Reply
to me show details
Feb 7 Dear Technorati User,
Thank you so much for taking the time to drop us a line. If you are reporting a problem you may be having you will be contacted by a support technician once we have had a chance to review your message.
If you don’t hear back from anyone within a week, please accept our apologies for the delay as we may be experiencing a backlog in Support. Please feel free to send us a reminder of your ticket. Please be sure to include the subject and ticket number, “[Support] Indexing – Last Updated date for my blog has not changed though I ping #65651], ” in your note so we may properly track your issue and its progress. In the meantime, you can also check our Support FAQ located at “http://technorati.com/help/faq.html” which may answer some of your questions.
If you have written us to share feedback, ideas, or suggestions (if the Subject line contains [Feedback] vs [Support]), you will not normally receive a response but we do appreciate and value any and all comments, alerts and suggestions.
We appreciate your patience and thank you for using Technorati! We hope we may be of service.
Best Regards,
Technorati Support
Reply to all
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Now let’s take a look at Google’s blog search in comparison. Google is up to date for ShowMeSciFi.wordpress.com within 3 hours of a post. Technorati doesn’t even come close at anywhere from 2 days to almost 2 weeks even if I do a manual ping.
So the question is – what’s up with Technorati? Is it just for bloggers who host on their own? I used to wonder why Technorati was till independant and hadn’t been bought by Yahoo! Google or Microsoft. I think I now have part of my answer.
Show Me SciFi 