Technorati Woes

I’m having some issues with Technorati. Searching around it seems I’m not alone. I did a search for ‘Technorati Sucks’ and Google came back with 2.2 million results. ‘Microsoft Sucks’ only got 1.1 million results and people love to hate Microsoft.

Personally, I don’t have a lot of experience with Technorati, but the little experience I do have hasn’t been all that fantastic. For those not cool enough to be in the know, Technorati is a search engine used for searching blogs. It also doles out all kinds of statistics that are meaningless to most of those who post them.

As an esteemed blogger with a Moses-like following I felt it proper to register with Technorati so that I could add yet another series of stats to get depressed over.

I jumped through all their hoops and even hogged up valuable real estate to confuse my readers with Technorati’s validation code. Apparently, all I had to do was post their claim code into my blog and I’d be instantly accepted into the Technorati family.

Even after posting their claim code, Technorati came back saying they couldn’t find it. It was on the front page and in my RSS feed but the Mr. and Mrs. Magoos over at Technorati couldn’t see it. It was suggested that I submit a support request, which I did, but many many days later I still had no reply. On the plus side, if anyone ever Googles 6kiqyb8wh4 my site will come up first. I love #1 rankings.

But I hate being ignored.

I sent a second support request, and begged for a reply, but all I got in return was an email that stated:

“While we may not be able to respond to every request, we do save every blog claim, so you may find your blog successfully claimed in the coming days or weeks. There is no need to reply to this message right now. Your ticket has been assigned an ID of [Support #28712].”

Basically, I’m told that I may or may not hear from them, that my blog may or may not be tended to in the coming days or weeks, that it’s pointless to reply, and that there are probably 28,711 other people already being ignored. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do with this Support ID. What is it for? I can’t find a support ticket system on their site where I can even reference it.

I just think it’s there to make me feel good. Like when I’m told how important my call is by the company that has me on hold so long that cobwebs begin to form between the phone and my elbow.

Fed up I decided to hit Twitter and vent. Not 10 minutes later I had a reply from a Technorati employee offering to help. I appreciate the gesture but why did it take public humiliation to get a reply from them? I suppose it’s not a crisis if the only people who know about the problem are the sender and the recipient.

I sent the helpful Jorge my blog URL and within 15 minutes I was given a link to check out my newly claimed blog.

How cool is that? How awesome is it that my blog is now…oh…wait a minute.

Check out the description they saddled me with:

First, I may be smart but I’m not a she. And in spite of my Flirty Girl Challenge, I’m not sassy. Oh, and if I have the biggest hair in the State then Hair Club For Men should just relocate to Texas and become bazillionaires.

Second, I may be loveable but I’m far from a southern belle, I couldn’t stomach serving people, and I absolutely hate Bacon Bits.

So close, yet so far. How confused are the masses now? I suppose I could log in and rewrite my description but I don’t remember what I originally wrote. Plus, this is just kinda funny and I think it’d get more clicks than anything I could write on my own.

I tweetered or twitted or whatever the term is back to Jorge and he replied saying, “Hmm, that sounds like a bug. I’ll let the guys know.”

I’m not sure who the “guys” are but from what I’ve witnessed, they are slow, blind, and not in much of a hurry. Perhaps if Jorge gets on their collective butts we’ll get this sorted out.

In the meantime, I’m leaving it up there as evidence that the squeaky wheel does indeed get the grease. Unfortunately, Technorati only greased one of the axles.