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Why is my Technorati Authority Falling?

Posted By Darren Rowse 30th of July 2007 Miscellaneous Blog Tips 0 Comments

Help – my Technorati Authority Ranking is decreasing – how can this be – I know I’m getting new links but the number is decreasing!?

This is a question that I’m asked quite frequently by readers and the answer is pretty simple.

No you’re not being penalized by Technorati and no the blogs that once linked to you are not being deleted….

The answer to this problem is that the incoming links to your blog are simply getting old.

Technorati calculates how many links are pointing at your blog from other blogs (your blog’s ‘authority’) based upon the last 6 months activity. This means that a blog that links to you today will be counted – but in 180 days it will not be counted any more.

This is how Technorati attempts to keep things fresh and not disadvantage new blogs entering he blogosphere. If they didn’t do it, old blogs would have an unfair advantage in terms of overall rankings. It means that all blogs need to keep active in order to maintain their ‘authority’.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Wouldn’t that mean that the old blogs are penalized by their age? If newer links mean a higher rating then you will have to continuously acquire links.

  2. Man Im so sick of Technorati! Seems like they are dropping the ball.

  3. My understanding of it is just that you can’t build a terrific site with a lot of backlinks and leave it to fend for itself, a successful blog requires constant work.

  4. Authority refers to “authority in the last six months,” basically. It assumes that the last six months is a lifetime in the blogosphere. Not a bad assumption, really.

  5. I was actually thinking about this yesterday as I browsed the Technorati Pop 100 and noticed some significant changes. I had wondered how they tabulated the results and it was useful to learn how.

    I suppose the reason people might be dropping in rankings is because once they achieve a level of success with incoming links they slack off a bit, thinking those links will yield a permanent benefit. Unfortunately this post confirms that there really is no rest for a blogger hoping to become popular!

  6. Good to know.
    Still you’d think it would factor in the older ones.

    One Man. One Year. $100,000 online. Fresh.
    http://www.oneyeargoal.com

  7. Robert,
    Technorati’s system doesn’t penalize older blogs. I’m pretty sure your blog remains on a sidebar, and a blog posts today, then technorati considers that link fresh.

    The ones that go stale are the old links inside individual blog posts. So, actually older blogs still have a bit of an advantage because people often forget to update their blogrolls for a while. But at least the technorati system doesn’t count every single link back to the era when dinosaurs walked the earth. (Which I think was sometime during the ’90s)

  8. Aha… Thanks for explaining this. That’s actually pretty nice.

  9. Thanks for explaining that. It’s good to know that Technorati is trying to ensure that bloggers have to keep creating good content.

  10. Thanks Darren for explaining about Technorati Authority

  11. Nice explanation. Didn’t know that. Think its not a bad system, certainly much better than Digg. Guess it is impossible to find a system that is completely fair and this is as good as it can get right now.

  12. Very nice. I wish Google was a little more like this. I’ve seen some pages on Google that are from the 90s and are only there because of age. (Meaning they have no new link, no good content, out dated…)

  13. I love this about them. I think it is one of the things that keeps them credible and an authority in this sector.

  14. Nothing in this life is that easy. If anything it gives you a place to vent out your writings. By the way a great movie to inspire the writer – ” Bridge to Taribithia”. Excellant movie, I never read the book. My little girls loved it.

  15. *Excellent

  16. I have no problem with the way the technorati authority is supposed to work. My problem with it is it rarely works as it should. I’ve had it stop pinging my blog for many days at a time even when I ping it manually. It also misses links to my blog from top 20 sites like Lifehacker way too often which penalizes me on authority. I guess I shouldn’t worry about it or let it bother me, but it is really annoying all the same. My biggest problem of all with technorati is how they are extremely slow to respond to any requests and sometimes don’t respond to requests at all. I hope they are able to work through their issues sometime soon.

    Brent

  17. This is a great idea on Technorati’s part. One of the problems for new websites with mainstream search engines is breaking through that “old link authority.”

  18. I agree with Brent. I had a Blogspot blog which was doing well in authority but once I got a “real” domain name and had it point to the Blogspot address everything started to drop off immediately. I wrote to them but they seemed unable to address it for me.

  19. I like how that authority system works. It sounded bad at first, where after six months you would lose whoever was linking to you unless they posted another link to your blog within a 6 month period… but after looking it at it from the perspective that new blogs now have a chance to compete with older one’s if they produce valuable content that more people link to them, then that’s a great idea!

  20. Brent and Nick – EXACTLY

  21. I think it’s a good idea from Technorati. This will make sure that new blogs too get a chance to beat the giants who have been there frmo day one of blogging.

    I hope other services too count blog authority similarly.

    Cheers!
    Mani

  22. I think it’s fair for technorati to handle things that way. My blog isn’t popular enough for it to matter one way or another.

    I wonder if Digg works the same way?

  23. informative! :D

  24. Who cares? I mean seriously. This is like the new page rank. People, bloggers particularly are way too concerned with these numbers and stats. Write content, comment on blogs you like, link to blogs / sites you like and let it be at that. Putting too much time and effort into these trival things do not make readers come to your site more and do not create content.

  25. Yes and no Mike. Some people make their living with blogging and therefore stats matter. They do for a corporate CEO so why not for a blogger?

  26. Great insight into Technorati’s workings, Darren.

    It just goes to illustrate that when assessing the authority of blogs, we need to use multiple metrics.

    If keeping up Technorati Authority on my blogs requires constant work, I am in luck, since one of the greatest reasons that I blog is that I enjoy the process of blogging, and part of that process is acquiring backlinks.

    Its all about outlook and attitude. Have a positive outlook and attitude about blogging and enjoy the ongoing process, while adjusting your assessment of blogs by incorporating multiple metrics.

    Besides, when you acquire back links you then go to the blog and thank the blogger who linked to you. It’s a great way to meet interesting people in the blogosphere and you can strike up new relationships.

    Then readers of that blog may turn out to have access to large communications channels, which means you may wind up with a lot more new traffic than you ever imagined.

  27. Mike Panic – I agree with you pretty much on that one. I don’t put a whole heap of stock in Technorati Authority numbers and don’t really have it as one of my goals to build them. However I guess it can be a useful way to analyze a blog (in one of many ways). It’s also important to some bloggers who write paid reviews as technorati ranking is used to determine how much they are paid in some systems.

    I personally wouldn’t recommend getting obsessed by building it up though – as you say, write a great blog and let it look after itself.

  28. Some of the Shiny Media sites have had a number of problems with Technorati. Either the site falls out of the directory altogether, or it doesn’t get updated for weeks (even after both automatic and manual pings). I’ve also had problems with the titles of posts disappearing even though there appears to be nothing wrong with the feed that the site is supplying. Most odd.

    Fortunately, and although Technorati links are good, most of our visitors don’t come from them, so it doesn’t make a huge difference on our stats. Now, at times when Google has dropped one of our sites… Yuck!

  29. There’s one other explanation for a dropping ranking — others are moving ahead of you.

    I know this because my blog is only a little over 6 months old, and before it hit its 6-month birthday, there were a couple of days when I dropped in ranking. The number of links and blogs linking to me were actually higher, so I know it wasn’t the 6-month rule … the only other explanation is that there were blogs that were getting links faster than mine.

    Once you get to a certain level, it’s hard to move up because the competition is so stiff. You’re competing with the big boys. And some of them get incoming links like crazy.

  30. Well, it makes logical sense for Technorati to deal with these oldies. Yeah, in blogging we should not rest on our laurels.

  31. Good point!

    A couple of days ago I was wondering why my Technorati authority rank dropped by 1 point.

    Now I know. Thanks, Darren!

  32. Creating an algorithm like this will never please everyone. I’ve certainly seen my authority decrease since I’ve spent the past few months sitting on my laurels and not getting as many fresh inbound links.

    Time for a new inbound links campaign!

    Vero

  33. It would be nice if they were to add some kind of weighting for blogs that are older and more established. For example if you Pro Blogger were to link to my site that link would have relevance and give my site both some credibility and traffic beyond the 180 days.

    I understand the idea of keeping the authority fresh but you loose the benefit of having an established site link to you after that 180 days.

  34. I know John Chow has been getting the bad end of the stick (is there a good end?) from both Google and Technorati, granted he is trying to manipulate them to some extent.

    I’m also aware that some sponsors of paid reviews look for a certain ranking, here or there, but most of it is so easily manipulated. I’ve been building websites and creating content (mostly forums) since late 1999, back then it was all about the Alexa ranking (again, something that can be manipulated). I have never installed nor do I know anyone who has installed the Alexa toolbar, I see no point. My vote doesn’t count to that sort of stuff.

    What I will say however is that it is easier to sell ad space outright, such as on WHT, when you have a higher page rank.

  35. Darren,

    I know you are successful we know you are successful, and if tehnorati gives you decrease on authority big deal !

    It really does not matter if you are high ranking on every page, keep this blog as you have right now, don’t change a thing in your writing or start some sort of tehnorati train in order to get that authority rank up.

    G.Luck

  36. I’ve always had issues with Technorati seemingly no matter how popular one of my blogs become :).

  37. My authority constantly fluctuates, but so far remains above 7,000. What’s funny is that when I first saw the headline, I thought, how could Darren not know that? But of course you do!

  38. Thanks a lot for explaining this. I had always wondered why my Technorati authority sometimes jumps down a bit.

  39. Yikes, this is news to me. Thanks for the info, Darren.

  40. I appreciated this information, very much. As a “religious” daily poster and a responsible social bookmark participant, It’s satisfying to know these types of strategies are in place, working in our favor.

  41. I’m surprised so many people didn’t know about this. I read it somewhere in one of their FAQ’s I think, but it’s good that you have informed the ones who did not know.

    When you think about it, it really pushes new bloggers to hit the ground running HARD. This is the hardest part, after that, it should be smooth sailing, because even when the links ‘expire,’ you should have built up new ones to take their place. Again, it’s the content that will keep drawing in more and more new readers.

  42. Someone said that Technorati counts links in the sidebar, i.e., blog rolls. I doubt that’s true. I believe it’s only looking at links in RSS feeds. So, having lots of older links or sidebar links won’t give you authority.

    Unfortunately, the algorithm is going to be very easy to game because it’s not based on the authority of the blogs pointing to you. All you need to do is have a bunch of low-authority blogs point to you.

  43. How to get authority from technorati…?

    newbie :(

  44. It’s mean that we have to be an active comentator at others site , that’s why we have to make a social networking around, thanks for this info Darren. :)

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