Technorati Blog Claim sucks (and its dangerous)
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Technorati is a famous blog search engine used by millions of users worldwide. It has been through its ups and downs, and is criticised and hailed simultaneously.
Until Google BlogSearch came around, Technorati was the only credible blog search engine. To this date, Technorati remains a good source for counting incoming links, tracking who is linking to you and rating blogs.
The first step in using Technorati, once you have created your account, is to claim your blog. To do this, go to Edit Profile>Blogs>Claim a blog, and enter your blog address.
Now comes the problem.
When you enter the blog address, you are confronted with two options - a quick claim, or a post claim for your blog. Quick claim requires that you input your user ID and password, and post claim requires a post with the given link.
To me, both are dealbreakers. Turning your confidential details like user ID and password is not ideal. Writing a post with one link in it(you can delete it, but it will still clutter RSS feed) is also bad.
The quick claim is relatively new, and replaces the meta tag upload that was earlier in its place. I had preferred the meta tag, and used it to claim my blogs.
Surely, there must be a work-around?
(Really) Simple Solution
The solution is pretty simple - use post claim, but without actually doing a post. Technorati requires that you have that post(with the link) somewhere in your blog homepage, so they are actually searching for the link. The easy way out would be to add that link as a widget in the sidebar. Delete it once the claim is done.
Wasn’t it easy? Now, over to you, readers. Would you rather take a risk and type in the user ID and password, or take the trouble of editing sidebar?
Karthik said on November 3rd, 2007
Am I mistaken or is this already outlined by Technorati?
Also, I believe you need to specify the XFN for the link too.
Post authorSumesh said on November 3rd, 2007
@Karthik: It must be outlined by Technorati - I am just pointing out that they’re trying to get an extra link from the blog(should the author forget to delete it) for post claim, and our username+pwd for the other claim, both of which are unacceptable. Hence the little trick of embedding in sidebar
Zac Davis said on November 3rd, 2007
I prefer using the post claim, I just put the code into my next post. It isn’t a big deal then.
Post authorSumesh said on November 4th, 2007
@Zac: Thanks, I too prefer the method, though there are some things you should know. Putting it in next post is fine, if you edit and remove it later. Why give a free link to them anyway? Besides, by the time you edit it, many search bots would’ve been pinged by the auto-pings. They may index the page quickly, and take into account the ping. That is what concerns me.
Karthik said on November 5th, 2007
I meant that I think this “trick” is already outlined by Technorati. I believe I read that while I was claiming mine. I used the same method, to claim mine, but I don’t think I went through with it after all. I guess there’s no real advantage to doing it anyway!
Post authorSumesh said on November 5th, 2007
@Karhik: Outlined already? Well, I did not really go over the documentation, but thanks. There is an advantage - when you hit publish, pings are sent to bots, and if they crawl before you remove it, your PR would drop because of unscrupulous linking (just kidding about PR part
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