Blog Comments, Technorati Authority and Passing Time
Many of us have used blog comments to jumpstart a new website. Links are a commodity, and beyond the benefit they impart when it comes to SEO, it’s easy to get caught up in a numbers obsession. Feverishly watching Analytics numbers, Alexa ranking, Pagerank and Technorati authority are all symptoms of this disorder.
Good links never hurt your site, but I’ll tell you why all that time you’ve spent commenting on dofollow blogs in pursuit of higher Technorati authority might have been a wasted effort.
First of all, who really looks at Technorati authority? The answer: you and all the other obsessed bloggers out there. Google doesn’t care, advertisers don’t care, most of your readers certainly don’t, and the average surfer doesn’t even know what Technorati is. Technorati has built their business by appealing to you, and without you they really serve no purpose. They know that they have a never ending supply of blogs and bloggers to keep the wheels turning, and they rake in advertising income off the insane traffic that all these obsessed bloggers generate for them. In all fairness to Technorati, they function as a blog search engine and not just a tool for obsessed bloggers, but you won’t find anything via Technorati that Google wouldn’t turn up for you. It’s an ingenious idea, and Time Magazine even named Technorati one of their 25 Sites We Can’t Live Without. We all should be lucky enough to come up with such a successful idea for a website.
So the powers that be behind Technorati anticipated smartly, and their idea for a web site capitalizing on the blog phenomenon is making someone lots of money.
Back to why you may want to slow down on your quest for membership in the Technorati Top 100 if you are trying to pump up a newer blog.
If your site has been around for a while and you’ve been down this road already you know what I’m about to say. Technorati states this in their FAQ, but who reads those things? Here it is, pay attention:
Technorati authority only counts the links you have received within the last 180 days.
You can work your rear end off for months trying to achieve a magnificient Technorati authority, only to find out 8-9 months later that your site is a Technorati bottom feeder again.
So, just keep this in mind when you are link building and doing the things you need to do to get a new site off the ground. The links you establish in pursuit of Technorati authority will benefit you and are most decidedly not a waste of your time, but if you are focused on Technorati authority be advised that this will be a neverending effort for you.
Getting a new site up and running is a lot of fun, and hard work too. Just remember that it’s all about your site, and don’t get too caught up in the numbers obsession. Build your site for your readers and for the search engines. A site built for Technorati authority is great for Technorati, but less so for you.
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Comment by Zath on 8 April 2008:
Some good advice there, I stopped listing Technorati widgets and being bothered about those rankings quite a while ago.
I would also just say that if you are starting a new site, be prepared to wait out the first few months before you become trusted and established with the search engines - therefore your traffic may be smaller than you’d expect until the like of Google starts sending you traffic.
Comment by Zath on 8 April 2008:
Also consider this, if you are commenting on dofollow sites to gain links - consider that these blogs could quite easily make these nofollow again and those links would be lost very quickly in the search engines’ indexes.
Comment by Dave Starr on 8 April 2008:
Thank goodness! Someone who knows something about bogs telling it as it is about Technorati. Dave and the folks over at Technorati are great people and they have done a lot to rauise the profile of blogging … but thye have no relevance for day to day bloggers.
The non-pro blogger and surfer barely knows of them, and the more a blogger knows/higher s/he is on the list, the least likley s/he is to decide what blogs to read personally or to comment on based on Technorati.
Technorati is like a company that polishes parts on race cars. If you already know how to go fast and already made the investment in an expensive machine, they can help put a shine on it … but they won’t take you 1 kilometer down the highway and they certainly won’t help you wn any races.
Comment by Nish on 8 April 2008:
Actually it is correct, and I think it is a waste of time…
Even if it helps promote your site, it will all go away pretty quickly…
Comment by Cesar on 9 April 2008:
That’s correct, I never take Technorati authority as important but I heard that tags in technorati can really help. I do not know if this correct but I am trying now.
Comment by Marie - Wipe Out Cellulite on 11 April 2008:
“Google doesn’t care, advertisers don’t care, most of your readers certainly don’t, and the average surfer doesn’t even know what Technorati is”
Had to smile when I read this.
What about adding Technorati tags to your blog posts - is this a waste of time or has it got any benefit these days?
Comment by mlankton on 12 April 2008:
If Technorati is paying you dividends by sending traffic your way it’s worth it. Otherwise, no.
Comment by Jeff Davis on 15 April 2008:
Couldn’t agree more about Technorati being irrelevant to the blogosphere nowadays. Since Wordpress stopped using them in the dashboard, they’ve lost even more of their userbase.
And if I remember correctly, they don’t track blogs that aren’t registered with them.
Comment by john oneill on 21 April 2008:
Its amazing how thing it cane go from non existance to ubiquitious to irrelevant in the blink of an eye. I put considerable effort into employing a number of partner technologies in to our website. Technorati is one of them. Are all my efforts in vein? Is it beyond useful to the point of being harmful or should I leave it in place?
Thanks
John
http://www.backupanytime.com