Technorati “Improvement” is Actually a Step Back

“Posted by Niall Kennedy on January 04, 2006.

We introduced two new features in our search results yesterday to better help you interpret a blog’s link popularity at a glance.

The Technorati talk bubble   appears faded out for blogs with no inbound links. If a Top 100 blog appears in our search results you will notice a special  button next to the blog name.

We hope you enjoy these first new features of 2006!”

I fail to see the improvement in these cute but fairly meaningless icons.  With the Top 100 being only … well.. just 100 (is that a surprise to anyone?), and Tecnorati tracking some 26 million blogs, it’s probably fair to say that the blogs that really matter are “lost” between these two extremes. 

Until recently Technorati had a far more meaningful indicator, the actual link-count listed in the search results. If they insist on switching from meaningful numbers to cute graphics, could they at least be more granular, and have a color-coded scheme for major brackets, like 50, 100, 500 ..ect links? 

Tags: Technorati, Rank, Relevance, Link Count, Technorati Top 100