Following on from a recent (if misguided) attempt to try some SEO type experiments (and validate some of the, ahem<\/em>, advice given on various websites) it seems my opinions of Technorati are in need of a review.<\/p>\n

First of all, in the past we have ranted on about the problems with this new web “paradigm,” where every one is supposed to get into social bookmarking sites and the like, so I will try not to repeat it here. In a nutshell though, as more people become dependant on del.icio.us, technorati, Digg and their like, it will become much harder to get noticed as a “new” website.<\/p>\n

For example, if you started a brand new website with all manner of cutting edge information in your blog – no one will ever see you. It will take weeks to get indexed in Google. Technorati are pretty much always a few hours behind your updates (unless you are a very high “ranking” site) and when you do a search the default is to return links to sites with more inbound links (and a higher technorati rank) than others.<\/p>\n

This is all well and good, and within reason does actually show what is more important on the web. However, it is (IMHO) drastically assisting the inherent polarisation of the internet. Gone are the days where the net produces even a semblance of a level playing field.<\/p>\n

If you want to get noticed by Google you need to either sponsor a lot of links or have such a PR juggernaught that you get mentioned on hundreds of other websites. Are either options realistic for the one-man-bands that web trading often characterises?<\/p>\n

If you want to get noticed by Technorati it is even harder. You need lots of other blogs to link back to you. In some cases this will just create even more link farming than there is at present. WordPress for example comes with a default Blog roll of about eight blogs – when you search for them on Technorati they get very, very high rankings!<\/p>\n

With about one and a half million blogs on Technorati there has to be some way of ranking them, but isnt the risk of making popular sites more popular and killing the smaller sites something to be avoided? If this was a debate about Tesco\/Walmart\/Sainsbury etc killing off the small shop then people are in uproar about the need for “grass roots businesses.” Why are we allowing, even encouraging, it on the internet?<\/p>\n

Almost daily I get emails from reasonably respectable businesses asking for link exchanges – occasionally offering to sweeten the deal with a cash payment – and this is especially true for websites with a reasonable Google PR. The problem with this (and with all systems) is that it is pure abuse of the system. Website X ends up with a high page rank (or Technorati rank) not because it is good, cheap, accurate or anything – just because it has engineered itself more inbound links.<\/p>\n

Add into this mess the problems with Digg and del.icio.us and you can see that trying to start a new, popular, website or service these days is going to be VERY hard.<\/p>\n

Now to make matters worse, it seems Technorati is as close to random, when it comes to updating, as possible. For example, each time a new entry is made on this blog it sends a ping to Technorati (and gets a “thank you” saying the database has been updated). However, you have to wait about four hours before the post appears in a search. This is not the case for some other sites – generally ones with high Technorati ranking.<\/p>\n

Once more, it is reasonable for them to have some system in place – however, this one makes the “hidden blog” situation even worse. People searching for “Interesting Topic XYZ” will generally be pointed towards already popular sites. The newer \/ less popular ones remain hidden.<\/p>\n

As the other ones become more popular they get more links, faster updates and become even more popular. Starting to see signs of an exponential growth curve here…<\/p>\n