07.08.08 Questioning Authority And Fixing It Too
Technorati‘s “authority” measurement is at best unreliable and at worst completely nonsensical these days. Technorati (supposedly) counts the number of unique blogs linking to your blog in the last six months and calls that number your “authority.” However, sometimes it misses one or fifty. If you know of a link Technorati has forgotten to count you can go to Technorati.com/ping and paste in the URL of the blog that didn’t get counted and Technorati will add it to your count...again, supposedly.
Also, Technorati does not like me breaking the 400 barrier, apparently. A while back - I’m bad with time but I think it was about a year ago - my authority was over 420 and then - BAM! - it dropped by more than a hundred over night. Literally, overnight. I thought that was because some links to me had aged out - in other words, had become more than six months old. A lot of links. Over a hundred links. All on the same day. I assumed that and forgave Technorati.
It’s happened again though. I was single digits away from the 400 mark again (not an important goal, not a measure of my personal worth, not like good hair or soft rock skills and a hundred push-ups) and - BAM! - it happened again. I’m at 217 in an instant. No slow decent, which is what one would expect as links age out.
I’ve sent a kind message to my friends at Technorati asking them to rectify the situation or at least offer up a plausible explanation. I’m not counting on a fix anytime soon though - with millions of blogs to keep track of of I’m guessing they’re a tad busy with problems more pressing than mine. So, I’m taking matters into my own hands - actually, into your hands. If you link to me from your blog, please let me know in the comments of this post. Be sure and leave me your URL. I’ll then manually paste your URL into Technorati.com/ping and hope you get counted. And with any luck and whole lotta help from you I’ll be back up to 393 again...or even finally break that 400 barrier again. And then I’ll not only have good hair and soft rock skills but I’ll be...um, at 400 again...and this is meaningful...because...Just let me know if you link to me. Thanks.
Cali Amy said:
Oh my goodness. I am so annoyed with the Technorati authority there are no words.
Last night, it said one of my blogs had no authority yet. Like I hadn’t claimed it. Just dropped form 70 to zilcho.
I know, I know, not 400, but come on!!!
Matt Brier said:
I do link from http://matman42.blogspot.com. However, Technorati and Blogger weren’t playing nice the last time I checked. I’m hoping with this last update to the Blogger interface that might change.
Kenyon said:
http://kenyongerbrandt.wordpress.com/
Cali Amy said:
oh by the way, yes, I do link to you
http://www.myfriendamysblog.com
Cynthia said:
http://cynthiatallman.com/b2evolution/
Thanks!
Mark said:
I link to you, but have for well over a year, so I probably don’t count any more.
http://markcarstairs.blogspot.com/
Eduardo Mano said:
http://www.eduardomano.blogspot.com
Shaun Groves said:
Thanks, everybody. I’ve pinged you all!
And this will also help me make sure I’m not leaving anybody off of my blogroll. Two birds. One post.
euphrony said:
I know I’ve linked to you more recently than six months ago - http://euphrony.blogspot.com.
To my thinking, Technorati is a beast. I say this because I often see their error page telling me the Technorati beast is loose. Very often. About half my posts never get indexed, no matter how many times I ping or e-mail their support people. And like you said the authority number is more imaginative than factual. With the 40 Day Fast I’m sure we’ve had more than half the participants post the links to everyone else. Many of them I’ve not associated with before, but with the links going up my authority jump a grand total of 10.
Now that I think about it, does the blog have to be registered with Technorati to be counted in the authority number? It seems I was told that before.
Kristy said:
I linked to you here:
http://knockout13.blogspot.com/2008/04/incredible.html
But (and this is weird) - I know that link was fine and worked, but when I went back to search for it, the link had been changed to Blogger’s home page. So, I’m not sure what that’s about - I don’t remember doing it, of course, but maybe I did. Anyway, I’ve fixed it now - maybe that was part of the problem?
Josh said:
somedaysoon.wordpress.com
Matty said:
I actually have never linked to you but I am going to now because I feel your pain. Technorati drives me nuts.
http://coloradogaws.blogspot.com
Seaton said:
http://seatongarrett.wordpress.com
erin said:
Technorati stresses me out. Plus I have like 2 readers, so it really doesn’t matter. However, you’ll be glad to know that those 2 readers see a link to you in my blogroll.
http://musingsofmrsmount.blogspot.com
Sara said:
http://fodderforthetellall.blogspot.com
Cali Amy said:
Euphrony, mine jumped more than 10 as a result of the 40 day fast, but I had a lot going on at once (LOST book challenge, etc.) My personal blog’s authority has jumped 60 because of those things, though.
I don’t think the blog has to be registered to count...but really. Who knows what the rules are when they constantly change?
Jaclyn & Zack said:
http://jaclynnzack.blogspot.com/
Sarah said:
http://scmcaffry.blogspot.com/
Thomas said:
http://thomasbingaman.wordpress.com
Thomas
Andrea said:
Linked to you in the last month.
http://www.decipherthefog.blogspot.com
Krista said:
This is why I don’t usually care what my “rating” is. It’s so subjective depending on which service you use. Most of the time I only wish I knew who the people were that are reading, just because I’m curious!
http://herlings.blogspot.com
boomama said:
You are on my blawg rawl.
http://boomama.net
Anne Jackson said:
Linky linked
http://www.flowerdust.net
Tina said:
Well, I link to you in Google Reader...does that count?
Clay said:
http://claywood.wordpress.com
Erin KT said:
http://thismustbe.wordpress.com/
One more thing Shaun, on the linking topic… Your 40 days “widget” (I think it’s called) on the right is not complete. Some of us were added a little later I guess. Would you mind changing it to the new one so our links appear. Thanks.
Fay said:
Technorati=headache.
http://www.faywrites.com/
said:
http://traviscottrellministries.blogspot.com/
crossdrivenradio said:
Hey Shaun,
I link to you at http://www.crossdrivenradio.com, but I don’t understand the whole technorati thing..
ScottMocha said:
yet another… :-
http://www.crazydisciple.com
Erin said:
http://erinandjohn.blogspot.com/
Kris Sorensen said:
You’re on my blog roll.
http://www.changeisgood4u.com/
Jeff Honnold said:
Hey Shaun - linking to you from The Water’s Edge
http://thehonnolds.com/TheWatersEdge
annie said:
http://redcedar.wordpress.com
thanks!
anon4him said:
http://anon4him.wordpress.com
Thanks
Wendy said:
http://weservetheking.blogspot.com/
said:
Who doesn’t link to you?
http://tracyedwards.wordpress.com
Veretax said:
You know I double checked, and I think I figured out the problem. I was linking to the wrong url.. Its been fixed now :D
http://blogs.ultraforce.org :D
Although I may be moving my blogs location at some point, I’m rather annoyed with wordpress at the moment :/
Shaun Groves said:
Um, Veretax, your blog says at the top “Photo Blog” but, well, there aren’t any photos on it? What gives?
Veretax said:
Ah, that would be Mrs. Veretax aka Sapphire’s doing. When I first installed Word Press I thought it would let us be able to use one system to divide our blogs up, and she, myself, and some of my friends could all view each others there. Well It didn’t work like I expected.
I’m evaluating my options presently, and am considering putting my blog off site. I’ll get that corrected, because while my wife intended to make it a photo blog, when she saw how it looked she lost interest. Thanks for the tip I’ll get that updated right away. I’m still a newbie when it comes to blogging :D
Amber Robinson said:
Hi,
I link to you - I met you at a concert this January - am a compassion advocate - writing a book on practical ideas to live justice everyday.
Please link to my website in your blog roll.
Amber