I don’t deserve this Technorati rank (and the other 1,999 of you don’t either)

Categories: Ethics, Social Media MeasurementPosted on February 3rd, 2007

My Technorati rank has plummeted (the lower the number is the more desirable). I’ll be breaking into the 2k range next week, and before this mess started I was somewhere in the 5k range.

I don’t deserve it though, as there’s this silly ‘2000 pictures and links collage‘ of bloggers that’s being spread all over the network.

If you’re new to blogging, a Technorati rank is just ONE way of determining authority, although it gives some interesting information. Anyone who registers to Technorati receives a ranking, as of yesterday it started at 2.5 million. It’s based upon who’s linking to you, how many times, and the authority of that person linking to you. Like Alexa, it’s overhyped, but still the only tool that’s been widely adopted.

For those lucky enough to be on the 2000 bloggers collage, it’s artificially driving down your incoming links from unique blogs. For those that are NOT on that list, you’re Technorati rank will artificially be damaged while I go by you.

The 2000 bloggers viral collage is artificially inflating the economic authority in our ecosystem

Links are currency, and this collage is a counterfeit factory. I hope that Technorati folks, Dave Sifry, Tantek and the other good folks over there negate this mess. I want to earn every link because of the stupid/brilliant (more stupid than brilliant) things I write, not just from mass pyramid linking structure.

I don’t want any part of this, you may take my picture off the collage.

Update Feb 5th AM: I’m not alone, Zoli agrees with me.

Update Feb 5th PM: Technorati is listening to me.

Update Feb 6th:
This is an important update, please read.

I just called Tino in Canada, he’s a good guy. I told him that my post was nothing personal towards him and I think that what he did was a good thing. It’s just that the network went crazy with it.

I encourage him to put the 2000 bloggers page back up, and then bloggers could link to that page, without having to spawn it and replicate it all over the blogosphere. I left several comments on others blogs saying the same thing.

I want to personally promote Tino as an innocent here, I hope that no one thinks ill of him, nor he or his website is penalized by Technorati or Google.

Again, Let me repeat it (esp for those who left somewhat annoyed comments on this post) I like Tino, I think what he did was done innocently and I think what he did was a great example of community. Let’s put this non-issue to bed.

Update Feb 6th PM:
Sigh, I’m hesitant to post this, as I want this to be over, but a little bird sent this to me.

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Ah, but, friend, we NEVER blog for rank, traffic, links, stats, accolades, or posterity. We am, therefore we blog.

Posted by vaspers the grate on February 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 pm

Blogging is not bludgeoning, but budgeting our slack time to type tomes. We linger like laundry that feels like flying saucers. WE blog because we have merged with the machines, who promise to be merciful as they extinct us.

Posted by vaspers the grate on February 3rd, 2007 at 8:48 pm

These are either going to be in my next fortune cookie or chiseled into the ‘blog museum’ in 2040.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on February 4th, 2007 at 8:44 am

2000 Bloggers Gaming Technorati and Google…

There’s a crazy meme going on which has the potential of turning Technorati ranks upside-down. Now, that may sometimes be good, giving fresh views more visibility, like Seth Godin or Steve Rubel’s recent initiatives. The new 2000 Blog…

Posted by Zoli's Blog on February 5th, 2007 at 7:00 am

[...] But Zoli Erdos brings up a good point which is calling it what it probably is - just a big link farm. Also, please note Web Strategy and his request to be removed from the 2,000 bloggers website. And lastly, it seems like Technorati is taking a look at sites like this and it’s certainly possible they may choose not to index it - thereby defeating part of their purpose. [...]

Posted by Opting Out Of 2000 Bloggers » Webomatica on February 5th, 2007 at 9:33 pm

[...] At the end of the day the appropriate people got outraged, Dave Sifry et al. got wind of it, 2000 Blogs got officially taken down, and the whole issue was probably forwarded it to Google who will also make note of it as well. After all, some of those 2000 inbound links are going to be from some pretty high ranking sites, and with the culture of “no Google-bombing anymore, because it makes us look foolish — don’t ask us why *now*”, you can bet someone will be listening. [...]

Posted by Deep Jive Interests » “2000 Bloggers” is Over — An Exercise In Link “Building” At Its Most Useless And Pathetic on February 5th, 2007 at 10:56 pm

[...] If you’re interested in more details you’ll find them at Jeremiah’s Web Strategy site. [...]

Posted by Almost 2000 bloggers : Creative Design :: on February 6th, 2007 at 4:11 am

[...] Links? Links ? Links? And worrying about it? Perhaps just a bit too much? Is that what weblogging is all about, folks? I am not sure if you have been following the huge uproar of commentary that has been going on every since Tino Buntic launched the 2000 Bloggers initiative. A lot has been written about the whole effect, not to take into account the good amount of link love that has taken place thus far, but perhaps two of the folks, whose comments have been rather insightful and definitely the kick-off to do something about it, were Jemeriah Owyang’s take in I don’t deserve this Technorati rank (and the other 1,999 of you don’t either) and Zoli Erdos‘ 2000 Bloggers Gaming Technorati and Google. [...]

Posted by E L S U A ~ A KM Blog by Luis Suarez » Blog Archive » Missing the Point on the 2000 Bloggers Affair - Is that What Weblogging Is All About? on February 6th, 2007 at 6:09 am

[...] Some people think that these links were not deserved. Maybe not, and I imagine that the mess created in Technorati’s backyard was not a pleasure, as they risk their rank credibility. I understand and I respect the opinion of Jeremiah Owyang and Zoli Erdos, as specialists in internet marketing. [...]

Posted by 2000 Roots of All Evil » All Tips and Tricks on February 6th, 2007 at 7:35 am

Many of us took part in the 2000 Bloggers Project as something fun and different to do. And we met some cool people along the way - I now have a few more blogs I read regularly because I found out about them through the 2000 Bloggers Project.

We liked that the only requirement was that a real person who was willing to show their face was behind the blog. TECHNORATI NEVER TOOK THAT KIND OF CONSIDERATION INTO IT’S ANALYSIS OF BLOGS.

Of course it’s artificially changing your Technorati rank, but that change SHOULD be temporary if Technorati is worth it’s salt. The problem is with Technorati, not with the 2000 Bloggers Project. The Technorati system was flawed from the beginning: links don’t accurately measure traffic or authority. Moreover, their method can easily be abused by link banks. It’s happened in the past and it will continue.

So A listers can create ten blogs that link to each other and Technorati rewards them. But now, when someone wants to PUT A FACE to blogging, you and Technorati get your panties in a wad.

Anyone who thinks blogging is democratic isn’t paying attention. There is just as much elitism and classism in the digital world as there is off the web. And I for one am glad such a simple project as the 2000 Bloggers one could unveil and unravel the elitism of Technorati.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault on February 6th, 2007 at 8:48 am

[...] Like Jeremiah Owyang says in his post I don’t deserve this Technorati rank (and the other 1,999 of you don’t either), [...]

Posted by Two Knives » Blog Archive » 2,000 Bloggers and MyBlogLog: Traffic ain’t readers on February 6th, 2007 at 9:06 am

[...] I had read Jeremy’s post on the project and partly guessed it was coming to an end. Technorati has more Technorati Tags: 2000 bloggers, General, pat phelan, roam4freeShare and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

Posted by 2000 bloggers at Roam4free on February 6th, 2007 at 9:07 am

Someone always has to bitch about something… Tino never meant to “game” Technorati or Google. But it only takes ONE whiney-ass to make something good, bad…

Posted by Roy on February 6th, 2007 at 9:54 am

Elaine

Amen! You are absolutely right, Technorati is not a measure of true authority, but it does however mean something.

oh and how’d you know about my panties?

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on February 6th, 2007 at 10:18 am

Roy-

Oh wow, you’re not seeing this completely in context of my view.

I think what Tino has done is great, in fact wonderful example of community.

I don’t however think it’s completely necessary for every blogger to replicate on their blog. Why can’t we just link to Tino’s webpage on it?

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on February 6th, 2007 at 10:20 am

I just talked to Tino, and have updated this post, please read the updated post.

I hope this puts closure on things, thanks.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on February 6th, 2007 at 10:40 am

You’re right and I was shooting from the hip… probably letting my emotions speak before my brain was engaged. My apologies. Just for the record, all of my posts on the subject were always links back to Tino’s page… I actually, kind of felt cheap because I wasn’t providing “in-kind” links to the other 1999…

Posted by Roy on February 6th, 2007 at 10:51 am

Roy

No harm done, no worries man. Thanks for responding.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on February 6th, 2007 at 11:31 am

Tino came up with an excellent solution: make it a single image.

Problem(s) solved.

Posted by StealthBadger on February 6th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

I didn’t join the 2000 Bloggers Project, but I was glad to be included. I even designed the banner for Tino. I did not add the 2000 blogger code to my blog. Instead I linked to Tino’s page. Could other bloggers not do that too? I for one was not trying to trick Technorati rankings in a ploy to get more inbound links. I don’t think others were either. I’m still a little confused about what is going on here, but I believe Tino’s heart was in the right place and he has many backing him.

Posted by Rose on February 6th, 2007 at 6:35 pm

Hi Jeremiah,

I wanted to comment on the link you have to the article on Tino.

Tino wasn’t out to game Technorati in any way with 2000 Bloggers. Several things happened without his forethought - one was that he did get some people interested in his business.

There’s someone out there acting like that’s a bad thing? If that was a bi-product, isn’t that a good thing?

I don’t believe Tino meant any maliciousness, gaming or bad will in any way. However, someone out there keeps pointing to the interview as if he did. The guy genuinely just started this as fun.

It’s sad now, that how someone who started something quite innocent and fun is being portrayed in a totally opposite manner. And it makes me a little ticked that someone is utilizing an interview I did with him to do this.

I don’t mean to be rude, but if you wanted this to end, and not prolong the drama, why post the link to my interview with Tino and act like it was a big secret with the whole “little bird” comment? Tino posted a link to it on his blog and so did several other people. Nothing was hidden, you could have easily found it on Technorati as well.

Regards,
Liana “Li” Evans

Posted by Li Evans on February 6th, 2007 at 8:29 pm

Jeremiah, with all due respect don’t you have better things to do with your time than poo on a few ordinary bloggers’ 5 minutes of fame? Give me a break. I really hope you’re proud of yourself.

Posted by Blog Bloke on February 7th, 2007 at 12:04 am

The problem with technorati is that their software is buggy as hell IMHO. Links from other blogs not showing up for my blog, but links from my own blog being listed sometimes on my own blog. It might work for the biggies (since big numbers of links likely hide the bugs), but with few links it’s creepy. Mind that I don’t care about my ranking, but it would be nice if I actually could find out who is linking to me.

If technorati has a problem with “2000 bloggers” distorting rankings, then their bugs are more on the conceptual level. Why don’t they just go back to being a blog search engine and abandone the whole ranking thing as failed?

Posted by betabug on February 7th, 2007 at 3:03 am

OK, it was fun while it lasted, and Tino was probably right to take it down.

But what of the *Next* 2000 bloggers? How about if you kept it to one category (Business) and give a little summary?

The effect would be the same. At what point does it stop being legit?

Paul

Posted by Paul Browne - Technology in Plain English on February 7th, 2007 at 5:18 am

[...] For more, read Jeremiah’s I Don’t Deserve This Technorati Rank. And Instabloke is going as far as calling for a boycott of Technorati I want to know what you think of the 2000 Bloggers. Do you feel you gained from it? What about your Technorati ranking…do you feel it’s inflated? Do you care? One way or another, let me hear about. [...]

Posted by Really, What’s the Point of the 2000 Bloggers Experiment - Healthy WebDesign - Developing and Building Successful Websites for Independent Professionals on February 7th, 2007 at 9:06 am

I don’t feel that I don’t ‘deserve’ the rank nor do I feel like folks should be penalized for participating in these activities. Time will provide the ultimate settlement of rankings. Did you know that splogs also inflate ranks? So… if you write about a good keyword like “Search Engine Rank”, chances are you’ll get a few references and move up in rank.

The 2000 bloggers and Z-List memes expose good blogs to other sites and bloggers who may not have heard of them. The fact is that your blog MAY be better than many other blogs, but you’ve not had the exposure that they’ve had.

Time will tell!

Posted by Doug Karr on February 7th, 2007 at 7:59 pm

[...] Web Strategist [...]

Posted by 2,000 Bloggers Gaming Technorati? Waaaaah! | On Influence and Automation on February 7th, 2007 at 9:04 pm

I like you am getting a lot of greif because I requested to be removed from something I did not sign up for.

Posted by Rose on February 8th, 2007 at 6:18 pm

I don’t think there’s a I deserve or I do not deserve this rank. People started blogging for fun, sharing, etc. It was not about gaining traffic or to gain the highest rank. 2000 Bloggers is a great idea, at least, in my opinion. It helps make a community of bloggers.

So don’t feel bad about your rank. Just blog and have fun.

Posted by Euri on February 9th, 2007 at 1:09 am

I never expected people to actually go and link to the whole thing on their blogs, simply because it is just a huge image-bomb on any page that takes ages to load and is kind of obnoxious. I thought it was just cool that it was you know, ‘there’ which was why I threw myself into it–since it is cool!

If people actually went and randomly clicked through the 2000 bloggers page, I’d like it more… as is I’ve gotten only about three hits from the thing, but hey, what can one expect.

Posted by Sam Jackson on February 10th, 2007 at 7:58 am

I do think its a cool feature to have.. While, I write primarily for my own pleasure, I do feel good when others visit my blog and drop a comment and if technorati helps with that, good for me..

Posted by Mahesh Subramanian on February 11th, 2007 at 7:24 am

[...] Until all 2000 bloggers are added reposting the code will act like a pyramid scheme where the bloggers at the top of the montage get more attention and links than the bloggers at the bottom. This isn’t necessarily a problem since links don’t determine traffic or value directly, but they can. And it did orignally create waves with Technorati and upset some bloggers. And this project isn’t about making people mad. [...]

Posted by 2000 Bloggers - » New Faces :) on February 13th, 2007 at 1:14 pm

[...] Subversive Bloggers By deviousdiva The 2000 bloggers project continues despite causing some big bloggers getting their knickers in a twist and trying to put an end to it. A couple of big boys moaned about their ranking at Technorati. I guess they were worried about their incomes but blogging IS supposed to be for all of us, isn’t it? Anyway, they have gained many new links through this project so I don’t think they have anything to worry about. (and Technorati is on their side) [...]

Posted by THIS IS NOT MY COUNTRY - The only thing necessary for the persistence of evil is for enough good people to do nothing. » Subversive Bloggers on February 14th, 2007 at 1:55 am

[...] What Technorati (and to some extent Google) didn’t like was this as an attempt to game the system - loads of blogs , with little or nothing in common, all linking to each other and in process seeing a massive increase in their Technorati and Google rankings. Given that 2000 bloggers included photos and nothing else, what’s the difference between this and a sophisticated link farm? Better said on ‘I don’t deserve this Technorati rank and you don’t either‘. [...]

Posted by 500 Irish Bloggers - Will the Irish Blogosphere be banned by Technorati? - Technology in plain English - Dublin Ireland on February 14th, 2007 at 6:53 am

I’ve gone from 6000 to nearly 2000 in a month without 2000 blogs. Just elbow grease and good content. It can be done.

Posted by Aaron Brazell on February 23rd, 2007 at 11:52 am

There are all sorts of truly artificial Technorati boosters like being linked from somone vile like Michelle Malkin, or Instapundit. I’d rather have someone like Tino, and random luck be a factor to even the blogging playing field.

Posted by saskboy on March 8th, 2007 at 11:48 am

Breaking the Chains…

We all have an old friend from high school or a cousin who sends us obnoxious chain e-mails (you know, [...]…

Posted by Minefeed.com on April 7th, 2007 at 10:34 pm

Posted by Minefeed.com on April 7th, 2007 at 11:33 pm

it’s only a matter of time till i get up on that pyramid of blogs.

Posted by mat on April 18th, 2007 at 2:02 am

I went through asking those 2k bloggers people to take my blog off but most of them refused. The main site supposedly did though and was quite nice.

Posted by Jo on May 1st, 2007 at 1:33 pm

[...] An almost similar project called 2000 Bloggers was discontinued in February because it drew flak from both Technorati and fellow bloggers alike. This happened despite Tino’s (the person who started 2000 Bloggers) intention of having fun with the collage, rather than “game” Technorati. [...]

Posted by Will Malaysian “MY List” Project Irk Technorati Bloggers? on May 11th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

[...] Now, if Technorati want to think I’m a linkfarm for participating in this, gawd knows what they think of the daily del.icio.us links. It’s my blog and I’ll zero influence if I wanna. [...]

Posted by Them who make me[me] do « Zero influence on June 10th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

[...] finish with this follow-up quote from Jeremiah Owyang who was one of the first people to speak out about 2000 Bloggers. I just called Tino in Canada, [...]

Posted by In defense of 2000 bloggers « Internet Duct Tape on July 19th, 2007 at 11:26 pm

Online morning is development of internet and security by webmasters,web developers from India and World for hard security of online information.

Posted by Online internet development on August 11th, 2007 at 10:30 pm

Hi Jeremiah

There is a series of posts (first one posted) about these social marketing metrics and the difficulty making sense out of them:

http://commetrics.com/?p=30

Sometimes it is viral for sure but maybe not a collabge - just business

Posted by WebUrs on February 5th, 2008 at 3:25 am

Wow, how did I miss this mess? I must have been sleeping, or off drinking wine…
It was interesting to see this highly ranked in google about technorati with regard to page rank…
Catherine, the redhead blogger