Technorati Fails to Index OakLeaf Systems Blog Posts

Commencing about two years ago, Technorati began periodically ceasing to index this blog, even after manually pinging http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com. Initially, indexing would stop about every six months but would be reinstated immediately after sending a message to tech service.

Recently, the indexing drops increased to about two-week intervals. Again, messages to tech service restored indexing. However, Technorati’s last automated mail acknowledgment included the following paragraphs:

Thank you so much for taking the time to drop us a line. Please check our Support FAQs located at http://support.technorati.com/ which may answer some of your questions. Please also review our Blog Quality Guidelines at http://support.technorati.com/guidelines/ which we've compiled to help you understand what criteria we use for indexing blogs.

Note that in the past, simply pinging Technorati initiated an indexing of a site. This open door policy meant a lot of splogs and non-blogs would enter the system and masquerade as blogs. In order to better filter out spam as well as inadvertent pings to Technorati, we have implemented review measures to evaluate a site prior to indexing it as a blog.

It occurred to me that Technorati might be using an automated “review measure” to determine whether the OakLeaf blog conforms to their requirements, to wit:

• Publish feeds that are discoverable by using feed discovery
• Publish full content (not summaries or excerpts) in an Atom 1.0 feed
• Sign in and ping Technorati directly with your claimed blog URL
• Write posts with original content. One of the biggest differences between blogs and websites is that blogging is about being part of the online conversation. We’d like to hear your opinions and comments in your blog posts.
• Write often. The more you write, the more you are a part of the conversation.
• Cite your sources. Provide attribution by quoting and linking to the source.

It appears to me that all OakLeaf blog posts meet the preceding requirements. Further, the blog’s Technorati Authority rating is 76, and varies between about 72 and 79. An authority rating of 76 gives a rank of 85,203 in a universe of more than 2,000,000 blogs followed by Technorati. The site includes a number of Technorati widgets.

Note: The Blogs / OakLeaf Systems page shows my most recent post to be LINQ and Entity Framework Posts for 8/4/2008+, while the Entity Framework tag topic show my Comparison of Code and T-SQL Queries for LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework Databound Forms of 8/4/2008 as the most recent entry.)

Technorati is attempting to expand it’s reach by becoming a content producer (Technorati Acquires BlogCritics, Gets Into Content Game), launching an advertising network (Technorati Launches Blog Ad Network, Technorati Media) and adding a business focus (Technorati Confirms New Financing; New Business Focus Coming).

IMO, Technorati needs to focus more energy and resource on it’s core competency as a technical blog search facilitator and ranking service. Its first priority must be to fix its indexing service.

Update 9/5/2008: It’s been 48 hours since Technorati sent it’s automated message that contained the following paragraph:

If you are reporting a problem you may be having you will be contacted by a support technician once we have had a chance to review your message. Note: We've been experiencing a backlog in support and are working hard to address everyone. [Emphasis added.]

Technorati’s second priority must be to improve the responsiveness of its technical support.

 

Technorati tags: Technorati, Entity Framework, LINQ