by Geoff Livingston
Just prior to BlogWorld Expo this past weekend, Technorati released it’s new authority system, a more mercurial gauge of popularity. The effort redefines the much maligned authority figure, and reclaim respect from the blogosphere.
Technorati, once the end all, be all of blog rankings, now often finds itself derided as broken and inaccurate. At play was the blog search engine’s inability to match authority to inbound links from social networks, and the rise of Google BlogSearch. As a result, blogs saw dwindling authority with the rise of social networks like Twitter and Facebook (image: Rosie, the Blogger).
Bloggers have largely abandoned Technorati as a benchmark, though the site is still considered by comScore as a top ten social media property. In an attempt to reestablish it’s foothold, the social index has recalibrated it’s authority and ranking system:
- Authority is calculated based on a site’s linking behavior, categorization and other associated data over a short, finite period of time. A site’s authority may rapidly rise and fall depending on what the blogosphere is discussing at the moment, and how often a site produces content being referenced by other sites.
- The new Authority calculation differs from the past version, which measured linking behavior over a longer 6 month timeframe. Please note that links in blogrolls don’t count towards Authority, as they are not indicative of interest in relevant content; we stopped including blogroll links in August 2008.
- Authority is on a scale of 0-1000. 1000 is the highest possible authority.
- Technorati Rank is a site’s rank among the Technorati Authority of all sites. 1 is the highest rank.
The new Technorati authority provides a pulse read on the Authority of Now, so to speak. What’s going to make us think this new system will work? Well, though feedback has been expectedly positive to negative, we actually have reason to think the new benchmark may be working as a current barometer. Take a look at this graphic: 
As you can see, I am a team member or author of two top ten thousand (10Kk) ranked blogs, according to Technorati. What’s not surprising is the Buzz Bin’s placement in the 10K. But what is surprising is the appearance of my personal blog.
Why? By no traditional metric – links over six months, traffic, RSS readership, etc. – should this blog be in the 10K. However, 19 days ago we shifted the Buzz Bin to a group blog status. During the immediate ramp up period and for the past few weeks, I have been blogging much more regularly on the personal blog, and sure enough traffic and interest has increased.
Technorati’s new rankings reflect this relatively recent change. It delivers an accurate barometer of not only the Buzz Bin’s continued performance over the past few weeks, but also my personal blog’s traffic as well as outbound and inbound links in a generally accurate fashion.
The implications for bloggers (new and old) are simple, now more than ever you cannot afford to rest on your laurels. Older bloggers still have the advantage with established RSS readerships, legacy posts and links, etc. from a traffic perspective, and thus, a better ability to influence current links. But now, newer entrants will have a much easier time measuring relevance through the ultimate currency – hyperlinks.
That in turn will force the Technorati 100 to be much more responsive to their communities. Let’s just hope Technorati’s spam bots are able to weed out the black hat SEO types.
Hmm, maybe they actually came up with a better system for now. At the same, time, I think authority needs to reflect past performance. What happens if someone goes dark for a maternity or paternity leave? Does all of their past work simply not matter? What do you think?
We were quite gratified to see Technorati’s announcement the other week, since it was great validation for everything we’ve been building the past couple of years (http://postrank.com/postrank).
Technorati’s original system was great back in the day when links were all we had to measure, and the web was smaller and simpler.
But nowadays the web works a lot faster and in far more varied ways. Links are certainly an important metric, especially if they show up within another blog post about the referenced content. Surely taking the time to write about what someone else had to say is a good indication of being engaged.
But there’s nuance, too. Real-time response to a link isn’t really critical, but replying in a timely manner to a tweet, for example, is more important (in a lot of venues, anyway).
We also organize and share content in many more ways now, and the social web can’t be ignored in any filtering or ranking efforts. Of course, not all social activities are created equal, so it’s important to weight them by the amount of effort required/engagement indicated.
And you’re quite right, Geoff. Anecdotally, regular blogging definitely is a key part in ranking well. It’s as much an exercise in training your audience as yourself, really. Plus, bottom line, people can only engage with content that’s out there and available.
Thanks for your insights, Melanie. The rise of social networks in general has certainly challenged the value of the blogosphere. At the same time, with weighting, new and shiny objects can become overvalued, too. For example, the value of a tweet is really arguable. More and more studies show Twitter links are small in number and created by a disproportionately small group of people…
Very true. I used tweets as just one example. The social web is a bit of a jungle — networks, sites, and apps rise and fall in popularity regularly, or get acquired, or disappear. Sites that are de rigueur in one part of the world may be completely unknown elsewhere. Some popular ones, like Facebook, don’t offer APIs, so the picture’s never perfect.
The bottom line, really, is that good analytics, authority rankings, etc. aren’t something you can just knock off in a week, or build once and then let lie fallow.
Definitely looking forward to seeing how Technorati evolves from this point. (And more info on their ranking recipe would be nice, too.) :)
I’m reserving comment until the bugs are worked out of this one Geoff. When I see the conversationagent.com sporting an authority of 1, things cannot be all that accurate.
I also wonder if the weight considers readers in the final analysis. Right now, it’s all a mystery. Personally, I never cared much for Technorati measures but did find it in an easy way to recognized links with a widget that I have since removed (the links no longer go anywhere). The result was dropping 411 to 125. A pulse indeed.
All my best,
Rich
All my best,
Rich
That’s right, Rich, I went from hundreds of links (bear in mind my archives contain 990 posts, many of which linked to and linking from abundantly) and 94 fans to zero and now – joke of all jokes – 1 overnight.
I put in an inquiry at Technorati on the support page. No response. No response from their Twitter account, either. That’s not very professional – or credible.
@Rich and Valeria Yes, I know there are quircks, but whether bloggers like it or not, many, Many people are using Technorati to find relevant blogs. Better get used to it.
Nice article. As per Rich, I am also waiting until the various bugs with the new authority measurement are fixed. I doubt however that Technorati will be able to complete with Google Blog search even with the new ranking algorythm.