ComMetrics Footprint: Technorati nixes blog rankings

Late on October 14, blogging directory and rankings site Technorati discontinued its Technorati Rankings and related data. ComMetrics used Technorati Ranking as part of its ComMetrics Footprint calculations.

Due to Technorati’s decision, we had to remove this measure from our ComMetrics Footprint.

Technorati Authority still exists, but now focuses much more on data from the last 30 days. The given Authority rank is somewhere between 1 – 1,000.

Scoring factors that are considered in this metric are:
– posting frequency,
– context,
– linking behavior, and
– ‘other inputs’.

This results in more volatile score, since blogs can frequently move up or down on the 1 – 1,000 scale.

Technorati explained the decision in a recent blog post:

“With the new algorithm, the resulting Authority will better reflect the fast-changing nature of the blogosphere. Its new inherent volatility will also show which blogs are rising and falling in authority, rewarding authors on posting frequency, context and linking behavior, as well as other data inputs.”

Currently, Technorati provides little, if any, information about how it calculates its Technorati Authority score for the blogs in the ranks. Furthermore, the Application Programming Interface (API) is still unavailable (difference between a widget and an API explained in plain English).

We have therefore removed Technorati rankings from our calculations, at least for now. We will consider re-introducing them as soon as Technorati again makes this feasible.

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Tagged as: benchmark data, blog metrics, ComMetrics Footprint, sensible metrics, social media analytics, social media measurement, Technorati, Technorati Authority changed