Tuesday, 14 June 2005

Technorati: tag pages problems






Have ever you tagged your blog posts with Technorati tags but then not had them show up on Technorati's tag pages for yonks? And when they do show up eventually (if you're lucky), they're said to apparently have been posted X hours ago, all of them at once, instead of at the times when you actually posted them?

You'll notice too that typically this may happen even if your posts do get indexed on Technorati (though that too is taking longer and longer after a ping), i.e. even when the same posts come up in a standard Technorati search for words in the post. And it may happen even when other posts of yours, before and after the problem posts, show up fine on the Technorati tag pages.

Now I'll explain below what I think has been going on, and what to do about it. And just to get an idea of the scale of the problem, if you have ever experienced that problem yourself, why not answer the poll at the end of this post (and please pass the link to this post on to your fellow bloggers) - so hopefully we'll all get a better picture of how widespread the problem is and how many are actually affected.

Summary

If you've had trouble getting your tagged posts appearing on Technorati's tag pages, and you feel you've done everything you should to tag them in the right way, then the problem is probably down to Technorati, not you.

First, check this: can you find those posts via a simple search on Technorati (e.g. for an unusual word or phrase in the post)?

If no, then Technorati haven't indexed them at all. Make sure all the posts concerned are displayed on your blog's main page and not just archive pages or post pages (for why, see further below) - by, if necessary, tweaking the number of posts displayed on your main page, then ping Technorati and check again later, hopefully no more than a day at most.

If yes, then there's a problem either with Technorati not picking up the tags for their tag database, or with some particular tags where the posts are in Technorati's database but they are just not showing on the tag pages. The only thing you can do is email Technorati support (making sure those posts are on your front page in case they need to crawl your blog again. It would be helpful if Technorati could confirm whether they need to re-crawl your blog to fix the tag page problem or whether they can just adjust their database, but in the absence of solid information from them about this, best have them on your main page just in case... details below.)

The details

Well I've had the problem mentioned above, repeatedly, since I started experimenting with Technorati tags (see my introduction to Technorati tags, this post and this post!). At first I thought it was my fault: maybe I'd been tagging wrong, handling multiple word tags wrong, using too many tags per post, etc. Then suddenly it started working though I hadn't changed what I was doing at my end. Ever since, on and off, the problem has kept recurring. In fact, it's happened again - my recent posts weren't on their tag pages for days, then today I see that they are.

Now I'm a persistent chapess, and I've tried hard on and off to get to the bottom of this problem. If the problem's not at my end, which seems to be the case as it'll suddenly start working though I haven't changed anything, then it must at Technorati's end: it must be something to do Technorati's spidering, indexing or handling of their tag pages. And it is.

Why should I care why it sometimes doesn't work? Well if it's down to my something wrong, like using too many tags so that Technorati's crawler thinks my blog is a spam blog and refuses to index it, then I want to know how to fix it: how many tags is it safe for me to use per post before I am considered an evil spammer, etc.

So, I kept trying for a while but just couldn't get a proper answer out of Technorati. Now I'm a big fan of Technorati, and I could understand it if Technorati didn't want to give too much away - e.g. if they told us exactly how many tags would be considered too many, spammers as well as legit bloggers could make use of that information - but if that's the case I believe that it would just be a courtesy to say to users that they won't give the information, and why, rather than ignore the question.

However I suspect the failure to respond and, in some cases, lack of clarity and comprehensiveness in the response, has been due mainly to scarce resources and pressure of work rather than anything sinister (they've indeed had some turnover in their support staff, Technorati's community manager Niall Kennedy said, and are hiring if anyone's interested! In that vein I think any tech support operation would do well to take a leaf or several from redryder52/Truckspy's book (just check out the Blogger forum), in fact why not just hire him for huge sums of money and be done with it? Not that I'm trying to unwarrantedly blow anything up his... I mean, blow his trumpet without good reason... I mean, sing his praises for nothing... psssst! we'll chat about the fee later...).

Technorati issues

Anyway, here are some key points to note about Technorati, based on what I've deduced from the hints in the responses I did get (and I gather I've been much better off than many people who haven't had any response at all):

1. Technorati sometimes doesn't pick up tags in your post for their tag pages

This can happen when Technorati are updating their indexes and your blog gets caught up in it (maybe it also happens in other situations I don't know about). Somehow some blogs get left out during this process. If it's yours, tough luck. It's nothing to do with your tags containing multiple words or digits, it's to do what Technorati have been doing.

The only solution: email Technorati support to report that your tagged posts aren't appearing on their tag pages, telling them the last date when your posts properly appeared on their tag pages and which posts aren't appearing, and ask them to fix their database or reindex your pages or both. If they don't respond and your posts are still not on the right tag pages in a few days (be kind, give them a little time as they're currently short staffed), then chase them up, and keep chasing every few days until it's sorted out. That's all we users can do, at our end. (Note that if the problem was due to their updating their indexes, often your tagged posts which were published before or after they were doing that work will be fine - it seems to be just the posts from around the time of that work, and just posts from a few blogs too, that are affected - not all of them. But then you need to get the problem posts sorted.)

Suggestion: you should get on to Technorati as soon as you notice a problem, before too many of your posts go off your front page and so might get missed.

Which leads to the next suggestion - before you contact Technorati support, you might want to make sure that your missed posts are all on your blog's main or home page, not just your post or item pages (in my case for example my main page is just at http://consumingexperience.blogspot.com/), and that the posts stay there for as long as it takes for Technorati to pick them up properly and show them on the right tag pages. (All this assumes that Technorati need to reindex the missed posts in order to fix the tag pages problem - it could be that they might be able to sort it out, if their spider has crawled those pages and they have the posts in their index, simply by tweaking their databases without re-crawling your blog, but I really don't know the answer to that, so unless Technorati confirm the position I suspect the safest bet is to make those posts available for a re-crawl).

How to control number of posts shown on your main blog page - there will usually be a setting in your blog platform for this. With Blogger, in your Dashboard go to the blog in question then click Settings and Formatting and it's the first tiem. With Wordpress, go to Options, the Reading tab, and it's the first item again.

Doing all this may make that page load more slowly, which is a pain for your readers especially if you use a lot of pics or have long posts like me, but (assuming a re-crawl is necessary) you may find you simply have to do it or your posts may not get indexed by Technorati. This takes me to the second main problem with Technorati.

2. Technorati will only index posts (including the related post or item pages) which are on your main blog page

This is not so much a problem as a "feature", as they say - in that it's due to a deliberate decision by Technorati not to crawl or index anything that's no longer on the main page (maybe for resource reasons? I'd certainly be interested to know why). Contrast this policy with Google's - Google will go back and re-crawl "old" webpages or blog posts, so changed or added text from later edits will be stored in Google's cache, and be fully searchable. Which is what I personally prefer, as I do edit some old posts to keep related information together in the same place. Google will pick up those changes, Technorati won't.

The combination of 1 and 2 is unfortunate. If Technorati are regularly failing to index tagged pages properly or posts are lost from their index or tag databases, which by many accounts is happening, it compounds the problem if (assuming a re-crawl is needed to fix the problem) they won't index "old" posts that are off the front page after their system is working properly again. Bloggers get the worst of both worlds; tagged posts which should have been added to and retrievable from the tag database may never get added. Technorati really should fix that problem - ideally by re-crawling old posts including those linked to from the main page, where the posts don't get into the tag database because of a glitch at Technorati such as index updating. In the meantime, and certainly if they don't address this problem, all we bloggers can do is keep lots of posts on our front pages, and keep emailing Technorati support about the issue.

Sidebar links: will Technorati's spider follow links to individual post pages listed in your sidebar? I don't know. I've asked them that several times and they've never answered that question. I suspect not. Pity, because at least it would pick up recent posts that way, given the way many blogs are set up (eg Blogger always seems to list and link to the 10 most recent posts).

3. Technorati do have a way to tackle spam blogs or link farms - that is, blogs with no real content but just lots of marketing or promotional links

I don't know exactly what their method is and how it works, but I gather from what Technorati have told me that some blogs do get labelled as spam by their software, and it seems to have something to do with the number (or density, I am speculating here?) of tags or perhaps of links on your main blog page.

All I can suggest in the absence of further information about the mechanics is, if you think you've been unfairly caught out by this and your blog isn't being indexed by Technorati (whether on their tag pages, or indeed at all), you should contact Technorati support about it.

4. Technorati's tag pages don't always correctly display what's in their database behind the scenes

An example is the "nominative determinism" tag which I started. As I write this only one post appears on that tag page. But there are more posts that have used that tag, see e.g. some of the posts under the Humour heading in my sidebar.

Technorati told me that their database is complete, the tags are in the underlying database, but with a few tags like this one their display code is missing them out. The issue seems to be related to specific tags (they're not all multiple word ones either, there's a problem with the "Wailing" and "aptonym" tag pages too, I was told) - sometimes the tag page displays all the posts with that tag, and sometimes they don't. They know about it and they're working on it. But this issue doesn't seem to be generally known. Which brings me to another point.

But even for individual tags which might seem OK, there are problems too. For example, I tag all of my posts with "Improbulus". Most of my recent posts are on the Improbulus tag page, but two of them from 9 June (see my archive) aren't there. See for example my post on rules of thumb, which can be found on searching Technorati for "cognitive heuristics", but isn't on their tag page for that word. So those pages did get indexed by Technorati - they're just not in the tags database, or they're not displaying properly from that database, and I haven't a clue which it is. It can't be to with that specific tag, because some posts with that tag are showing both before and after those posts. I have emailed Technorati about them and with any luck they'll sort it out soon, but I'd sure love to know what went wrong there.

Problems with tech support? (generally, not just Technorati!)

Customer service is something I feel strongly about, including tech support. The Americans are meant to be way better than the Brits on this front, but not always.

In all sorts of areas, communicating with users is important: particularly when there are severe and continuing difficulties which seem inexplicable to those not in the know. To mangle a phrase, people abhor a vacuum, and in the absence of information will fill it with frustration (which can ultimately rebound on the company concerned, and not in a good way).

It's about time Technorati introduced (and then should thereafter keep updated) "Known issues" and "Status" pages, and have big links to them from their main page and search and tag pages. That would be less work for Technorati too than having to field numerous emails (and risk alienating users by not answering them). And the first thing on the "Known issues" page should be an explanation about the problems with tag pages: exactly what the problem is (indexing? Adding to the tag database? Retrieving info from it?) and how it's being addressed (and is re-crawling of particular blogs needed to fix it once spotted?).

Companies like Technorati should build up a database of issues and queries not just for a "Known Issues" page but also to facilitate quick standard replies to support requests. It's entirely possible for responses to be rapid, resource-efficient and succinct yet sufficiently informative to keep users happy. A lot of the time, most people are quite tolerant and can live with bugs and issues, particularly with a free service, but only if they are kept informed - being ignored just breeds anger and frustration, and even mere resignation may be enough to induce mass desertion if other blog search engines appear with tagging facilities.

Dave Sifry the Technorati CEO said at the end of his post introducing Technorati's new beta service that feedback comments were the first thing people at Technorati looked at each day. It's all very well and good to have an eye to the future, visionary thinking is indeed laudable, but what about problems in the here and now? Support requests should be equally important, if not more so, as a source of user feedback - e.g. for clues on bugs or issues, such as with tag pages. Or is it the case that users with problems would be better off emailing Feedback rather than support, in terms of getting their issues addressed?

It's received wisdom that companies should pay heed to their "difficult" users/customers, the ones who have problems, the ones who ask for help, the ones who complain. For each person who takes the trouble to put finger to keyboard, you can bet there will be many others who've suffered the same problem, but just gone away dissatisfied rather than bother to give any feedback to the company. It all adds up. Reading and responding fully and promptly to support emails is one of the best ways for a company not only to get feedback from its users, but to let them know they're listening, that they care about their users, and that they intend - even if not quite yet, due to limited resources and more pressing priorities - to address their issues and problems.

Now that Technorati have launched their new beta, let's hope that after they have a bit of a breather (which seems much needed after rolling all that lot out!) they'll turn their attention to the tag and tag page problems.

The poll


So if you have views about the tag pages issue, please take part in this poll. I hope that even those who haven't had problems will take part (there's only one question to answer in that case!) as that will help gauge whether in fact only a small percentage of people have had problems (and they're the only ones I've heard from!). I'm not the best person in the world with HTML layout/design, OK I'm useless at it hence all the spaces, and it should be obvious but note it's meant to go from left to right...
Have you ever had a problem with your tagged posts not appearing on Technorati's tag pages?
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If you've had that problem, how often have you noticed it since January 2005 when Technorati introduced tags?
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If you've had that problem, how often did you report it to Technorati or ask for their help?
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If you reported it to Technorati or asked for help, what happened?
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If you reported the problem or asked for help from Technorati, how do you feel about the results?
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If you were quite unhappy or very unhappy with the result, why? (you can choose more than one answer)
No response
Response was too slow
Inadequate response - they didn't answer the question properly
They didn't fix the problem at all
They took too long to fix the problem
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Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

35 comments:

SatishTalim said...

Like I had told you before, Technorati have not tagged my tag:ABJ2eeArticles for over 10 days. After I used this tag, I had created many new tags that were tagged! Leaves me wondering whether they do not like digits in their tags.

Anonymous said...

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Niall Kennedy said...

"with a few tags like this one their display code is missing them out"

I am not sure what you mean. We combine tags of various formats for normalization purposes. If you were told something about this it is not clear from your post what your specific problem is.

Any public-facing database of known issues, status, and feature requests provides good market intelligence for competitors and this is generally why companies stay away from this public exposure of its community's feedback.

If a user with problems e-mails feedback it is reclassified as a support ticket and handled by the appropriate member of our support staff.

We never stop for a breather! We are busy with new features, partnerships, and making Technorati a viable business. I expect the volume of support requests will only increase due to the increased exposure we hope the new site provides.

One tip you did not mention: make sure your pages validate. Enter your blog URL into the W3C Validator to check if you are as friendly as possible to search engine spiders. The best way to control the full indexing of your site is to provide the clean content for general consumption.

CptCanuck said...

I've never had a problem with tagged posts appearing in their index although the supposed timestamps were screwy.

I have had cause to write Technorati on 2
occassions in the past year regarding separate issues and never heard back from them. I realize its a free service and I really do appreciate that but the bottom line is if you aren't keen on cutomer support then don't offer it.

SatishTalim said...

Niall mentioned about making sure that our pages validate using W3C Validator. I am using Technorati to create a link - 'Blogs linking to this article', at the bottom of my post. However, the url generated by Technorati is flagged as error by W3C Validator - example using &url instead of &url etc. I have written about this to Technorati and hopefully I should get a reply soon.

Scott said...

Thanks for this post. I'll begin the research process on my blog's tags.
An interesting thing to note, however, is that you've posted 2 items today re: technorati and only the the one re: tagging old posts is showing up on http://www.technorati.com/tag/Technorati as of this moment. And there are a couple others going back 2 days from other people so the other post didn't 'roll off' or anything like that.

Improbulus said...

SatishTalim - I don't think the issue is digits, tags with digits exist e.g. to take a very clear example, 911. I think those posts might be to do with their updating their index when they crawled your blog, though I wish they would be clear about exactly what it is.

Anon - I'll check that out, thanks.

Improbulus said...

Niall - on the display code point here is my query plus what Kevin Marks told me when raised the issue before:

> I see that the "Wailing" tag now shows both my posts, but I've also
> noticed that phenomenon with other tag searches, where it says X posts
> from Y blogs have that tag, but it only shows 1 post from a blog. Was
> it a temporary indexing blip, how does that thing get sorted
> automatically short of people noticing and contacting you?

Kevin said: This is a transient bug we are trying to nail down; it happens now and then fro a particular tag, but we haven't pinned down the exact cause yet.
This applies to 'aptonyms' and 'wailing' too - the tags are in the underlying database, but the display code is missing them out.

Public info vs database - for the public info, I was talking just about known issues and a status page. Blogger have them and other services do too (particularly a status page). I don't see how that affects the competitors issue, myself. If something doesn't work properly, users will know it (and competitors who use your site will know it too, just from using it fully!). Surely it's best to explain to users that there is a known issue about tag pages not displaying all tagged posts, as there clearly is one, and that you're working on resolving it. I hope you are because this is the number one problem that bugs users the most; it's the only really major problem I have with Technorati (though I think some of the explanations on your site could be clearer, which is why I've written several of my posts!).

PR-wise, is it not best to acknowlege there is a problem but just explain you're working on it? If when you update your indexes you miss some posts out, surely you need to introduce some redundancy there to ensure continuity of the service, for instance (to be very simplistic about it)? Please see CaptCanuck's comment. It is really a question of managing user expectations. For example Pubsub have a Feedback email but they clearly don't have a Support email, so everyone knows they don't intend to provide support direct to individual users.

On the database point - I wasn't suggesting your database of user requests/queries be made public, but that if you don't already have such a database, surely you should introduce one (for internal use) in order to make Technorati's handling of support requests easier and more efficient, and so that you can analyse them and detect patterns which suggest bugs or future changes which need to be addressed sooner?

Feedback emails - OK, so much for the idea that users can get support issues prioritised by emailing Feedback instead!!

I imagine the volume of support requests will indeed increase as you say, but you guys need to make sure you are geared up to deal with them - again it's the managing customer expectations point. More staff, better trained staff, databases to support your support function, and maybe you'll have more chance of a quick breather!

Validator - thanks for the tip.

Improbulus said...

Cpt Canuck - thanks for the comment. I agree with your point entirely, see my response to Niall.

SatishTalim - interesting about the validator, I've not investigated it myself, I shall leave that in your capable hands and look forward to hearing the results!

Kingtone - thanks for that, I hadn't checked the tag pages for yesterday's posts yet. Only thing I can think of, again based on what Technorati have told me before, is a blip in their updating their indexes for that one post. But that doesn't make much sense if the other posts that they must have crawled at the same time (as I posted those in a row pretty much) are appearing on the tag pages. It has to be something to do with their tag database - I wonder if it's the same issue as the "transient bug" one mentioned in my reply to Niall above - that some posts with one tag show while others with the same tag don't display. It would be good to have a definitive answer from Technorati on this as I know I'm not the only one who's been tearing their hair out over this, or getting paranoid! Look forward to hearing the results of your further research.

jon oropeza said...

Thanks for the info, I've never been able to get my arms around a good reason for technorati's flakiness, so i've written them off until now. Figured I'd add tags to my blog again and give them another chance - it's a shame though since I can't imagine them getting anywhere long-term unless they get this ironed out. Part of the magic of flickr or delish is that they work, they always work, and there's absolutely no sense of 'Hey, what's the heck is going on under that hood?' when you're using them.

Improbulus said...

Jon, thanks for the comment. Yes do give them another chance although be warned the problem is still there. I agree entirely, they need to iron it out.

Even if it's because of problems with invalid (X)HTML, I'd say most bloggers haven't a clue about how to validate their HTML, and Technorati need to be more forgiving in including posts on their tag pages even if they're not 100% valid. Hell, Blogger are meant to go through a validation exercise when you post via their Create new post page, and they've picked up the odd place where I forgot to close a tag, yet they're much more tolerant of things like ampersands in URLs (which I think is the main area I need to fix in my own blog). So is Google which indexes my blog just fine despite its not being 100% valid HTML.

Zoli Erdos said...

Getting indexed late is still better than getting all messed up!

I've come to accept the fact that tags show up on Technorati in a rather random fashion; this is personal experience + what numerous bloggers say...

However, now even when Technorati picks up my tags, they always point to the wrong article, specifically the article posted before the one that the tags belong to! More here

Googling the issue brings up 2 other similar cases, none got resolved :-(

Quite a way to look like tag-spammer with all the irrelevant posts...

Michael Hampton said...

Zoli, that happens with FeedBurner feeds. Let Technoratibot read your original feed (same idea with your .htaccess rules as with the FeedBurner redirect) and it should start picking up the right tags.

Editorial Staff said...

Yep, I've had the "no tags appearing on Technorati" for about a month or so. I was up there without problem for a few months straight from the very first day I used the service--then--like lightning out of the sky, I just vanished from the site. I didn't change anything that I can tell--I am using the same tagging tool that I was using months ago (and since the problems, I even hand entered them with no new results). I just mailed support-again-and am awaiting an answer I hope. I posted an entry on my site about my Technorati problems and I hope someone gives some solutions!

Improbulus said...

Thanks for the info Mr X, hope they sort it out soon.

Zoli, have you had your problems fixed yet?

I'm still having problems. Even when a post shows up correctly on one tag page, it doesn't show up on another tag page - the same post!

Don't know if we'll ever get to the bottom of it all, at this rate...

Zoli Erdos said...

For a while it looked like they fixed it, but as of yesterday, it's back.
I've found old post show up new on Technorati under tags that clearly were not part of that particular post... not even the next/previous one.
I've basically given up trying to figure this out ... Technorati is a great service in principle .. a mess in their execution. :-(

Anonymous said...

I had an existing Blogger blog (already indexed by Technorati) to which I added tags. These have never shown up as tagged posts. I recently started a couple of new blogs with identically-formatted tags from the start. These do show up.

Could Technorati be identifying some blogs as "tagless" and never going back to see if tags have been added?

Improbulus said...

Zoli, I've had that "wrong tag page" problem too, now.

Anon - Technorati won't look beyond the main blog page. If your old pages which you've just tagged are on your main page they should get tagged (if Technorati index your blog at all); if they're not on your main page, they won't. See this post.

Anonymous said...

"Anon - Technorati won't look beyond the main blog page. If your old pages which you've just tagged are on your main page they should get tagged (if Technorati index your blog at all); if they're not on your main page, they won't."

The problem isn't with old posts, but with new tagged posts on the main page. I've pinged and pinged, and Technorati comes to index, but doesn't recognize the tags.

Improbulus said...

Anon - would you like to leave a link to your blog? Although I suspect that may not necessarily help. I feel your pain. My blog has been suffering the same problem since early July now, and hasn't even been indexed since that date, never mind posts showing on the Technorati tag pages.

As you may have seen from the comments to my post on getting old posts tagged, what you did has certainly worked for at least some people - why it doesn't work for you (and now, me) I don't know, I'm afraid you'll have to keep trying Technorati support I think. I suspect it may the same old problem that I've reported in my post above. Technorati really need to sort this.

CL said...

I thought I am the only one experiencing these problems. At first, there was a delay in all my post being tagged. It does not appear for days then all of a sudden they appeared altogether a week later. I ignored this problem thinking maybe the spiders are exhausted.

Some two weeks now, none of my blogs are being tagged. I emailed support and feedback about 4-5 times now and only get an auto-response and one ticket number stating email them back again if I don't hear from them. So, I did, and still did not hear anything.
I wrote something nice about technorati’s effort to fight spam and fake blog but thinking about it now, I may have spoken too soon. With all these growing concerns about not being tagged, I wonder how intelligent are these spiders (artificial intelligence)? How long before I can get a decent humanly response? If they are too busy, overloaded with inquiries or experiencing undeniably glitch with their program -- at least give the user a hint that there is actually a problem with the system and reassure that they are working on it. This will minimize the numbers of complaints and calm the users down. Unattended complaints are bad for the business.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to *Vent* about this issue that almost drove me nutty worried. I feel better now knowing that I am not alone.

May I add your blog link to my blog?

Improbulus said...

CL I agree, it would be good if they could acknowledge the problem and at least say they are working on it, rather than leave users in the dark. Here's hoping!

And of course you may add my blog link, if you wish. :)

Richard said...

I'm using wordpress & the ttags & ultimate tag warrior plugins to generate Technorati tags.

First, I've noticed that it takes T.--when it does generate a link fr a tag--far longer than an hr. to generate those links (though sometimes I've found they've generated in as short a time as 10 mins.).

Tech. IS indexing my site. But it does, as you mention, sometimes not recognize my tags. I don't know what's going on. I have e mailed Support but not heard back fr. them.

AFter reading your post, I'll do periodic checks on those tags to find out whether the links are there or not & try to let Tech. know when they're not.

Improbulus said...

Richard, I agree, Technorati are a bit erratic (and me too, sorry for the delay in replying!). They're not recognising my latest post on its tagged pages, again, even though the post is in their index and appears on a full text search.

I think periodic tag searches are the best thing, coupled with emails to Technorati support if you find your posts aren't being picked up. Until they make sure their systems and databases are all working smoothly and consistently, I don't know what else we can do...

Snarkattack said...

Am I ever glad to have stumbled upon this blog...seeing as I decided to experiment with these tag thingies.

None of the tags I added manually have shown up on Technorati - however, my most recent post showed up under a tag I didn't manually add (that tag being 'snark'. I don't understand enough about how T'rati works to explain that (believe me, I'm trying, honest)...perhaps I'll check to see if my posts turn up...in a week or so.

In the meantime, I'll be nursing my brain, it hurts.

Improbulus said...

Snarkattack, not quite sure what you mean? You seem to be using Wordpress, so your Wordpress categories ("Posted in...") will be used as your tags - see this post for more on tagging.

Your latest post categorised under "Snark Bite" does appear under that tag in Technorati, see the Technorati tag page for that phrase.

As for your posts appearing under "snark", I'm a bit confused what you mean? I've looked in the Technorati snark tag page and don't see any of your posts there?

Anonymous said...

It's time for a Technorati replacement.Is there no other site out there that does the same thing as TEchnorati?

Improbulus said...

Icerocket indexes blog and has tags. Google's Blogsearch searches blogs, but hasn't got tagging yet. But none of them appear to be as comprehensive as Technorati, at least on the tags front (because they started using tags much earlier), though sometimes they pick up stuff that Technorati misses.

renee said...

Thank you for this good information. I thought I was going insane, but at least now I know other people have the same problem, and that it is POSSIBLE that technorati support can fix it. I'll get on that. Thanks again!

Lesly said...

Technorati are driving me nuts ... I am not terrifically IT minded but I have managed to put together a reasonable blog. However, I just can't seem to get the Technorati side straight (I registered my blog with them about 6 months ago). I am sure that its not 'reading' my blog when I 'ping'. My profile does not show my latest posts (ever) ... or all my Links. I have written to them before but did no get a reply except the Automatic one.

Since reading here I have re-checked, refined, re-tagged, and re-pinged ... (thanks for all the info)and NO its still not working right. So I have contacted them AGAIN today ...

And to cap it all ranking site Ontoplist.com tells me that my blog cannot be found on Technorati (although it does show up on some tags but the info shown is incomplete!)

Heigh Ho!

Improbulus said...

Renee thanks for your comment, the main thing is to get on to Technorati before the problem post is more than about a week old, else they may not be able to fix it after that.

Lesly as you can see it's not necessarily your fault. Keep on at Technorati, you can always try their support bod Janice Myint direct? jmyint@technorati.com

Mario said...

I've had a problem with my technorati tags not showing up for a while, and it seems it was related to my feedburner feed not being associated properly with the blog.
technorati support suggested adding ...

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ImTellingU" />

... to my head tag, and as soon as I've done that, the posts began to appear in their tag searches..

Just in case this is useful to anyone struggling with a similar issue..

Improbulus said...

Thanks Mario. Technorati do seem to have issues with indexing Feedburner feeds generally, see this Technorati post.

Gregory said...

EXCELLENT post ... Thanks for this!
You SO helped me out by explaining that I have basically done everything right and Technorati hasn't. I can sleep again now ... Woohoo! Cheers, Greg

Improbulus said...

Gregory, many thanks for your comments, and I'm glad it helped you! You're absolutely right, it's not you, it's Technorati. And as far as I know they've still not fixed it. I've kinda given up on that now, and accept that some of my post just won't appear on their tag pages.

Once they'd fix it if I reported it immediately, but they've stopped doing it or even replying to me, and I've stopped wasting my time trying to report it.