It seems that the blog giant Technorati, which currently tracks 112.8 million blogs, is having a few serious problems within the blogosphere. I popped over there today and came across a thread on their support page headed: "Can't claim my blog, please help."
The thread began on 26th October, 2007 and since then, no less than eight people have contributed to the thread - not with assistance for the plea that seems to have gotten lost in the ether, but each one complaining that they have exactly the same problem.
As of today, Technorati hasn't responded to one of the posters in this thread.
Nice work Technorati.
Many people mirror their blogs from elsewhere to Technorati in order to give their blogs more exposure. Technorati has a ping service, which allows you to ping them. This in turn advises them electronically that you've just updated your original blog, which will then update your mirrored blog on Technorati.
Theoretically, this system works just fine, so I'm not quite sure what their problem is at the moment. I know that if I had a blog with Technorati, I'd pretty upset by now. Not so much about it updating, (although that would upset me too,) but at the fact that not ONE official person from Technorati has addressed these people's posts, or at least make them aware that they're working on the issue.
The opening post by geekonthemove follows:
"Hi Admin,
I have been trying to claim http://www.bornrich.org/ but it always failed.
The last post indexed is 60+ days old. However, the blog is updated on regular basis.
I have pinged you a number of times but no respond yet.
This is something I didn't expect from Technorati.
Help me out please.
Thanks."
As far as I can see - their ping service simply isn't working. If this is true and it's not some other issue, there's going to be a lot of angry bloggers on Technorati with lit torches, looking for blood.
My own blog is hosted here on Blogger and I've been pretty happy here, however if they began having such a problem and simply refused to answer its members with regard to a mass complaint, I'd pull my blogs and move elsewhere faster than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
With the services that I provide for my clients, it's always foremost in my application of those services, to provide the best that I can possibly produce - apparently Technorati doesn't think exactly the same way.
Whether a blogging platform is being paid for or not, it still performs a service and as such they should always aim their support crosshairs higher rather than lower, to achieve the best result for its users.
One lady, in the thread was kind enough to suggest to the original poster, that he try filing a claim ticket with Troubleshooting since they weren't getting any responses to the issue at all. She went on further to say that it started around a month earlier than the thread was even opened.
Goodness Technorati - what is your problem? Why won't you address your members about the ping issue in the support columns?
Another person said that they'd already filed Troubleshooting tickets twice! Unfortunately (for Technorati,) he also gave the URL where he's a written a post on the matter.
It's not pretty either.
I had to laugh, when he suggested:
"Perhaps the error message is wrong. I think it should be "We don't want you as customer, leave this page immediatly"
The blog (which is no longer on Technorati,) seems to be half German and half English, however don't let that put you off, he provides the reader with enough English paragraphs that you'll understand plenty and then leave shaking your head.
Another person said that he had also sent tickets and is still unable to claim both of his blogs, saying that he always gets the same error message:
"try again in a few minutes..."
Yet another person receives the error message:
"The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server."
I went to their support page and clicked on Ping in their tag cloud. No less than thirty posts all claiming the same ping issues appeared. One person's blog hadn't even been updated in 177 days! Others were a month and yet another person's blog hadn't been updated in 633 days.
Then I noticed that what I had thought to be thirty posts was only what appeared on the first page - there were twelve pages of ping complaints in all!
Karl Long is the Web/Social Media Integration Manager for the video game group at Nokia. He had this to say about Technorati.
An entry on the Laketree web site, documents quite a few problems with Technorati and will again have you shaking your head or looking for a noose if you happen to still have unanswered support tickets with them.
My research revealed that many voices are being added to the melee!
The Small Business Blog
http://www.sme-blog.com/sme-blog/technorati-17-days-3-complaints-and-still-no-response
Marketing Pilgrim
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/10/technorati-bullies-struggles.html
Google Groups
http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help-troubleshoot/browse_thread/thread/801eaaed6...
The Frugal Law Student
http://www.frugallawstudent.com/2007/06/03/technorati-doesn%E2%80%99t-like-my-blog/
Chris Heuer's Idea Engine
http://www.chrisheuer.com/2006/10/06/david-sifry-good-service-still-not/
ProBlogger
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/27/has-technorati-stop-indexing-blogs/
There were certainly more, but frankly I got tired of copying and pasting the URLs for this article.
Technorati - you have more than just a few unhappy campers in your campground and some have already left - what do you plan to do about it?
~ Swan
