A while ago I realized that Technorati is not reading the tags I've been inserting into the end of each post. In fact I did some checking around on Technorati and it seems as though they haven't read any of my tags for a very long time (maybe since Blogger switched to new blogger, since it seems in the new Blogger the labels act as a tag. I'm still using an old html template and don't plan to change.) If I click on one of my Technorati tags, it does take me to that tag at Technorati, but none of my posts are there.
I'm noticing a few of my favorite blogs have dropped the Technorati tags and wondered how many food bloggers are still using it. It seems to me it's not a very likely way for people to search for recipes or food content.
Should I just take the tags out of my post template and forget about Technorati?
(BTW, they are indexing my blog because the list of "who links here" always seems fairly up to date.)
This Post was written by Kalyn from
Kalyn's Kitchen
14 comments:
I've never used Technorati tags, just my own category system. (Which I don't think they read properly either.)
If it's hurt me, I have no clue. I figure they should adapt to me, I'm the one they're servicing. (And I really don't care much any longer, I bounce around anywhere from 4,000 to 12,000 within 6 weeks ... is my "ranking" really that volatile?)
As a reader I use the feeds for Technorati tags, which are very broad, to read what other bloggers are up to. I have one for chocolate, one for candy and one for fair trade. My posts within those topics show up in those digests.
If you're concerned because you don't see a lot of referrals from Technorati, it could be that many folks are like me and reading a digest instead of directly on their site.
I've always found technorati to be completely useless, both as a reader and blogger. I think the way people access info has gone way beyond technorati and they've made no attempt to keep up.
I think T has a number of issues which they don't know how to address adequately or quickly.
I dropped T about two or three months ago, as a result of their ranking and authority revisions last summer. Overnight I lost hundreds of legitimate links, but they kept all the splog links; LJ seemed to totally fall off their radar, and new links on other systems either didn't show up or showed up ages late.
I didn't see the point of using their tags after that.
If I've suffered, I'm not seeing it: my readership and traffic are higher now than before my break, and people pitching their wares still pitch their wares.
j
I dropped technoarti tags months ago - it has made no noticable difference.
Does anyone actually 'use' technorati apart from checking their own site details?
If you're using Technorati to find out who's linking to you, you can create and RSS subscription to that.
I also use BlogPulse.com and Google Alerts.
None of them is complete, but all together they do a decent job. (Google Alerts will often find forum posts.)
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It seems I'm not the only one questioning the value of Technorati tags.
BTW, I'm not having trouble with the Technorati rankings or the feature that shows who's linking to you (although the ranking is pretty erratic and I pretty much ignore it.) It's just the tagging aspect that doesn't seem to be working for me. I tried manually pinging Technorati when I did a post with specific tags, but when I checked my posts were still not there.
I think I will probably just quit using the tags, which is actually kind of a relief, just one less thing to do for each post.
I think I dropped the tags about two years ago. I just couldn't be arsed any longer. I also find the ranking volatile like Cyblele. I dropped about 5000 spots in a month despite my readership being even keel at which point I realised they don't know what they are doing, or at the very least they are inconsistent. I used to check them for links, but these days google alert seems to work as well.
I'm like Sam--I stopped using the Technorati tags ages and ages ago, and it hasn't made a difference to my traffic.
I also agree that they have no clue what they are up to when it comes to ranking and listing links. I get splogger links showing up, but often legitimate blogs link to me and it never shows up.
Whatever.
It is just one less thing for me to play with in each post and I saw no benefit to it in the first place.
can provide some industry insight.
I work for a rapidly growing tech/b2b internet publisher. We have had a couple of discussions with Technorati. They went through a very bad period from about a year and a half ago to about six months ago where they basically stopped doing anything new, tried out a lot of things that didn't work at all and lost themselves as a company. THey are back under better management and are rumored to be doing some good new things. But it is just a rumor and at the moment I can't see that they provide any value at all. Maybe int he future.
Okay, I just took the Technorati tags out of my post template, so tags are history unless I hear that they're working well again.
However, since a lot of people are commenting here related to Technorati in general, I do want to clarify that I still think Technorati is really valuable for finding who links to you. Sam, I also use Google alerts, but that only notifies you if someone uses the words you've signed up for as an alert. It's great if someone mentions your blog name, but since a lot of my links are by recipe title or other words, it never catches it if someone links with words like "this recipe" or "here." I'm definitely still going to continue using Technorati for the purpose of finding links.
(And yes, their ranking and authority is a bit wacky, but who cares about that anyway?)
Kalyn, you can use "link:http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com: as your alert term and you should get all links to you.
Sorry, make that
link:http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com
I gave up on Technorati a long time ago. They seem to be broken more often than not and they generally have done a poor job of following my RSS feed as well as a very poor job of providing support (I just got an email back from a several months old trouble ticket). I found I got very little via Technorati but spent way too much of my own effort trying to get it work, so I say good riddance!
I have been using technorati tags for a few months and they have done nothing for me at all. I think all they do is confuse people that visit my blog. I will keep using them for awhile longer and see if I can figure out how to get the most out of them.
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