Technorati. On the outside looking in.

How is it that a service the size of Technorati remains broken for over a year? A service that touts itself as "the recognized authority on what's happening on the World Live Web, right now." There's tons of post on the issues with Technorati, but it boils down to two major things. First, it's virtually impossible to claim a blog, doing so results in the infamous "There was a problem claiming your blog. Please try again in a few minutes. You can also go to Technorati Help for help claiming your blog." message. Going to Technorati Help is no help at all. If your lucky enough to get a claim made, then you will most likely be plagued by the "blog last updated xxx days ago" issue. Both of these have been around since this time last year, and every so often something will crop up about how Technorati is "fixing" the issues. I realize this is a free service but what I don't understand is how this remains an issue and they stay the "recognized authority" they claim to be. How many support tickets do bloggers have to submit on a daily basis before the issue is actually addressed? If you search for Technorati issues you'll see a number of bloggers have had the issue fixed on a "case by case basis". Interesting, does that imply Technorati is a "Members Only" club, that you have to be part of the "in crowd" to get service?

In a very recent post David Sifry has this to say:

We've recently found a strange bug that is causing some legitimate blogs to not be indexed, you can see an example of this here. We've verified that this is indeed a bug in the Technorati service, and our engineers are actively working on the issue. As soon as we have more information, including a resolution, we'll keep you informed.

If you've been affected by this bug, my deepest apologies. And if you are ever having a problem reaching someone at Technorati, you can always contact me: dsifry AT technorati DOT com. My cell phone number is 415 846-0232.

So they are just now getting around to finding a bug that's been around for over a year? Even for a free service that's unacceptable. There is some glimmer of hope though, Liz Strauss at Successful Blog reports that there is at least one employee at Technorati that appears to be able to help those of use stranded in Technorati hell. Customer service representative Janice Myint seems to be the answer to a lot of bloggers prayers. Indeed if you search for Janice there are a number of posts around from bloggers who have had similar issues and Janice has come to their rescue. In fact, reading through Janice's blog, there are a number of tips and tricks for using the Technoarti service, these would be great if the service was usable. Janice, if your out there, we'd be eternally greatful for some of that magic server pixie dust getting thrown our way.

For now I guess we'll just be stuck on the outside looking in along with a lot of other bloggers. It's a shame really, Technorati used to be, for me anyway, a great service. Then one day it all just stopped. Having tried new blogs on different ip's the results all seem to be same. Denial. It's ironic this all began, at least when I noticed Technorati ignoring all of our blogs, back when the rumors of a Google buy out where being tossed around. Things were great until that point. Maybe it's coincidence, but it's gotten beyond frustrating. I guess I'll do what everyone else does, continue to submit support tickets in the hopes that one day, one of them might land in the email basket of someone that cares enough to help.