Okay, so I have authority in technorati, now what?
Nov 5th, 2007 by Cathy Nelson
Every now an again I check my blog stats–what little the freebie Edublogs platform offers–to see how I’m doing in Technorati. It was a good while back that I became familiar with the concept of Technorati and what it does. I learned how to find bloggers who wrote about topics I was interested in, and suddenly kind of figured out what “tagging” was really all about, particularly from Technorati and Hitchhikr. The tags for conferences like BLC allowed me to virtually attend, even garnering an invitation from David Jakes to join in the conversations at this summer’s BLC. What a blast! But I also figured out that in Technorati I had to claim my blog, and ping the site as I made posts. It was through my Technorati profile that I began to realize that the more other blogs mention you (in postings or blogrolls) that your authority would go up. So recently I began a campaign to see if I could raise my authority (how very selfish of me!!) I knew some of that authority was b/c I was cross-posting and referencing things I had blogged about over here on TechnoTuesday on the SCASL Blog, where I am a contributing member. But recently I took some time to see where else my authority was coming from. I can thank some virtual friends (David Jakes, Darren Draper, Joyce Valenza, Rob Darrow, Woody DeLauber, Dean Shareski and many more) –some of whom I’ve NEVER met personally, and yet some I met casually at NECC ’07 and probably didn’t register a blip on any radars then (due to being so blogger star-struck)… Many of these same bloggers are Twitter friends as well, so I feel safe in referring to them as friends, at least in the virtual sense in the very least. Anyway, I worked a week or so ago to get some RL friends to add me to their blogrolls (thanks Chris, Maryann, Tim & John) to see if I would get a boost. Well, low and behold, my authority is now a whopping 36, whatever that 
means. I still haven’t quite grasped Authority or Page Rank in Technorati, but I think 36 means I’m not quite ready for any Edublogs 2007 Awards (or any other year for that matter. But I did learn something about blog manipulation. Maybe one of my friends can explain this to me as well.
Keeps you humble don’t it? While it isn’t about the stats, it seems to be an indication of readership and thus level of influence which leaves me wondering sometimes
I’ve been very frustrated with Technorati. My posts don’t get updated on there even after I manually “ping” my blog. I’ve written to them a few times and each time I receive a reply that they sent spiders to my blog and it should be successfully indexed from now on. So, I write another post and it still doesn’t get updated.
When I went to check Technorati’s help forum I found I was in the company of many other bloggers.
While having my blog updated on Technorati doesn’t make or break my blog, it is very frustrating. Like all bloggers I want to increase my readership and I think Technorati is one avenue to attract more readers. Unfortunately, if someone stumbles upon my blog on Technorati they’ll find my blog hasn’t been updated in 3 weeks (it’s only been one).
Oh well. Sorry for the rant, Cathy.
On another note, I am impressed with your 36 authority. I’m sure it will keep increasing.
Hi Cathy,
Somehow I couldn’t manage to find your email…it’s been a long day. Lovely to hear you read my blog too. My secret identity?
I am the teacher librarian at Seycove Secondary School in North Vancouver BC. I also give info tech workshops around the province. I checked out technorati today after reading your post. My authority is 8 at the moment which I guess puts me just this side of invisible. LOL.
The whole Technorati authority is a mystery and you’ve explained some of it. I’m honored to know a 36. If Lesley is just this side of invisible at an 8, I’m undeniably unknown at a 4. It’s fun, though.
Ann
As to the “now what” part of your question–have you “subscribed” to feedburner? Technorati only counts the number of links to your blog. But it missed all the people who subscribe through aggregators. For example, I only have an authority of 7 on Technorati, but according to feedburner, 17 people subscribe. Just another cool technostatistic! (grin)
http://www.feedburner.com