Technorati Tags - Useless, or Just a Waste of Time?

Technorati Tags - Useless, or Just a Waste of Time?

It pains me to write this post. Some time ago, I spent a number of hours writing a program to easily, rapidly, simply, and conveniently generate Technorati tags for this and other of my blogs, and to offer it for sale to my readers and others.

But, I have come to the conclusion that bothering to include Technorati tags, contrary to what I previously was led to believe, is worthless, useless, and simply a waste of time.

I am not going to go into a lot of detail, or spend any time polishing this post. It is not worth it to me. It is just a warning to you. If you are not getting the results you may have been led to expect by including Technorati tags in your posts, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. It is that Technorati sucks.

Including Technorati tags gives THEM backlinks, but frequently doesn't give YOU backlinks. All too often, even though you ping them, your posts will not show up if you search a tag you have made, even searching it from your own blog.

Even if somehow, your posts do make it into their database, it will not show when someone does a default search. Your post will essentially disappear because of others' blog posts with the same tag word. Then, there is the question of your blog's "authority". That is an attempt by Technorati to be the "Google of blogging." Their algorithm sucks. It is similar to Google's in that it is based on high school clique popularity contests. (see Google Search Engine Rankings - Just a High School Popularity Contest.)

Then there is that rigamorole of "claiming" your blog. That is totally cumbersome, to both add and delete blogs. And it begs the question of why do you need Technorati permission for YOUR blogs. Just more useless, time-consuming "Web 2.0" craaap.

Furthermore, Technorati is totally unresponsive to queries regarding problems, and I suspect that if you question them with challenging questions, they just blacklist you, and they use your blog "claim" information for that. Beware!

I could go on, but I have spent too much time on this already. Just ask yourself, if you use Technorati tags, have they REALLY done you any good? Comments are open.

Update 2009-06-18: See Technorati Tags for SERP -- Useless?