When browsing around the net today, I realized that I had never claimed this blog as my own on Technorati. I claimed the old Vitamin CH, but never this one. When I went to do it, I saw that the process has changed somewhat. Instead of just posting the usual "ignore this post, I am just claiming my blog" type thing, I thought I would post how to do it. (Warning: The process didn't work as planned for me. I would love to hear from those for whom it did work about how to make it work!)
The first step to claiming your blog on Technorati is to create an account over there. There is always debate as to whether Technorati means anything in today's blogging environment. My take? It can't hurt to claim your blog and it does help you get some extra PR when you post.
Once you have your account claimed, navigate to your favorites page in your account and scroll down until you see this:
(This should show near or at the bottom of the right hand column of the page. )
Clicking this link will take you to the first page of the blog claim process. Here, you will be asked for you blog URL. Put it in the box and click "Begin Claim", which will take you to the page that caused me to write this post. If your blog post ends in a slash, you may have problems claiming your blog. In my case, the first two tries didn't work because I only put in the main part of my URL. I skipped the "/default.aspx" part. Adding that should have corrected the problem, but does not seem to have done so.
This page says "Choose your claim process". Choose (to me) implies that there is more than one option. I only got one: Post Claim. Using Post Claim requires you to create a new blog post with the Technorati code in it.
The post claim process is described on the next page (sample shown below):
The basic idea? Create a post and put a link to your Technorati profile in it as an active link, like so:
Technorati Profile
Activate your post as usual, then go back to your Technorati page and click the "Release the Spiders!" button.
For me, this process didn't work. The first problem was that I put in just the beginning of my URL as I noted above. Fixing that still didn't work. A quick visit to the FAQ for claiming your blog suggested I ping Technorati to make sure it could be found. Once I had done the ping, I had to update the claim code above and try the claim again.
Now, I understand that the above process should work. In my case, it still isn't. Which brings me to the second reason for this post: Is it worth it?
I know that Technorati used to be one of the main gauges of a blogs popularity. But if a blogger has to go through a process that is this complex and which still doesn't work for some blogs, is it worth it?
I do know that the old Vitamin CH did get some traffic from Technorati (and still does). I just don't know if the amount of traffic justifies trying to fight through a process that has this many problems.
On the other hand, I also know that my friend Connie Bensen just discovered that her blog is much more popular than she thought because of Technorati. You can read all about what she found on her post: Measurement of my Blogging
I think that Technorati can be a useful tool. What I am not sure about is if the use outweighs the difficulty for non-computer experts to claim their blogs. After all, if I can't get it to work, how can I train someone else to do it?
Update: At least now Technorati knows about the problem. They say there is a claim in progress, but that there is a problem with the claim. Meanwhile, this blog is now at least showing up there. It is a bit behind, but it is there.
To help myself see how things are going, I am going to attempt to put the Technorati authority widget in this post. To see the authority info, click View blog authority