The increasing irrelevancy of Technorati: Sacrificing usability for pageviews
What is our obsession with continuing to use the blog search engine Technorati? Is it because of its ranking system — which allows us to receive an ego boost every time we compare our popularity to other blogs? For years, the search engine has tried every which way to alienate its users with a multitude of error pages and poor usability.
Case in point: Recently, Technorati has made it harder for its users to access its search results by forcing them to make redundant clicks and pageviews. Let’s say you do a search on those blogs that have linked to Bloggasm. If you then want to click through to any of the links in the search results, does it take you to the blog post in question? Absolutely not. Instead, it takes you to yet another technorati page with one tiny link to the blog post that produced the content. There are links on the main search results pages but they’re also tiny, faded, and unnoticeable.
Imagine if Google were to try and pull this crap: Every time you do a google search, rather than the links taking you to the webpage with the content you’re looking for, you have to first go through a redundant Google page. They wouldn’t even consider such a thing, much less implement it.
So again: Why do we continue to use Technorati?
UPDATE: Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra responds to my criticisms in the comments section. Immediately following his comment you’ll see my response.
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Simon, sorry if you’re having problems with the site. While we do some things that delight people, we seem to do plenty that consternate as well — that’s the unfortunate reality of trying to satisfy millions of visitors every month. That said, we’ll keep trying our best to serve all to the best of our abilities. In terms of your specific issue, please note that your desired URL link directly to blogs is actually is in fact on every page, and easily clickable just below the bolded title of the blog. - richard (Technorati’s CEO)
Richard,
I did note that the link is on every page — I said “There are links on the main search results pages but they’re also tiny, faded, and unnoticeable.”
I agree that with millions of visitors, it’s impossible to meet the desires of every one, but I don’t think this should be used as blanket excuse. In this particular case, a large majority of the users will end up clicking into a redundant Technorati page before realizing that they have to click on the tiny faded link below it, if they realize this at all.
That said, I’m glad that you personally responded to my criticisms. I wish more companies would create direct dialogs with bloggers.
I think it’d be better to say “I wish more companies would create direct dialogs with users.” I realize that much of the commentary comes from bloggers and blogs are often used as a filter for information. There are complaints elsewhere. Forums, in particular, seem to be a place where companies are willing to look and fix the easy problem (= good pr) but then delete posts that reference issues that they cannot fix (= bad pr, but only if you get caught). I’d say more, but I’ve got work to do.