How to “Claim” Your Blog on Technorati
By • Leave a commentImagine my surprise a few weeks ago when I went to look for my blog on Technorati and discovered it wasn’t there. I thought it had been listed long ago.
Technorati is the most popular blog directory. In order to “claim” my blog I need to insert my claim token X5T3TJFPRFAR in this post, so please bear with me, and you’ll learn how to claim yours, too.
Why Technorati is Still Important
Technorati isn’t as important to search results as it used to be because blogging has become a mature marketing tool and search engines can find you through quality backlinks and relevant content.
In the early days of blogging, you could be assured of a big traffic spike when you registered your blog with Technorati, and now it’s more like a small bump. But Technorati still matters, especially if a prospect or another organization is searching for bloggers who cover their industry.
Technorati Authority measures a site’s standing and influence in the blogosphere. Being registered with Technorati is sort of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval that you are an authentic blogger.
Also, you can list your blog in more than one category and add tags. So when someone starts searching the site for blogs in a particular category or tag, it’s possible they’ll find your blog.
The Technorati 100, the top 100 blogs by Authority, is a prestigious designation that the popular blogs tout to their readers. The Huffington Post has been the #1 blog for quite some time. As traffic to your site increases, your Authority rank will increase, too. But you’ll need more than 36.2 million monthly unique visitors to beat out the Huffington Post for the top spot.
How to Claim Your Blog
You need to join Technorati in order to browse blogs in various categories and to “claim” your blog, which verifies that you are the author. You’ll see the instructions on the site about how to get started. I initiated the process in late January and then let it lag. I got stumped when they emailed me my claim token (see above). So I asked John Sawyer, my favorite webmaster, for his advice.
Here is what John told me to do:
“You need to take the claim token they provided and insert it in a new blog post and publish it (my note: in its FAQ’s Technorati states that ‘many feeds do not include the full post, so putting it at the start of a post ensures it gets into your feed.’). You could color it white so it won’t be visible if that’s a concern.
“After the post is published, give it an hour or two, then go to your Technorati account and click Manage My Blogs. Click the Check Claim button under WSS. On the ensuing page, there will be instructions, which you will have already completed. Below that is a Verify Claim Token button. Click that button.”
Once you’ve submitted your Claim Token, Technorati will send you this email:
“This is an automatically-generated email.
Thank you for submitting your blog claim on Technorati. We have successfully crawled your blog and found the claim token, and your claim is now awaiting review.”
When your claim is approved, you’ll received this message from Technorati:
“This is an automatically-generated email.
“Congratulations, your claim is now complete! Please allow 24 to 48 hours for Authority and recent posts to begin showing for your site now that it has been successfully claimed. Once they are there, we will update your site’s Authority once per day.
“At first you may not see your site listed in the Technorati Blog Directory for all of the categories you’ve selected. As you write blog posts around those topics, you should see your Topical Authority in those categories begin to rise.”
In its FAQs Technorati lists several technical reasons why a claim didn’t work. Hopefully, that won’t be the case for me.
Claiming your blog really isn’t that difficult, but there are a number of steps you have to go through. I think it’s worth it.
Have you registered with Technorati? Have you found it a valuable resource?
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I remember doing this. I had to help my husband do this for his blog as well.
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So you’re ahead of the game. Good for you.
I hope the process was easier than it was for Catarina and me!
Like you I became a member years ago. However, after reading this I decided to claim my blog.
Could easily log in but all searching for my blog gave 0 results. So I decided to claim it. But after Technorati telling me three (!) times that neither the URL to my blog nor to my facebook fan page are valid URLs, I honestly lost interest in Technorati. Most likely they have a bug that cause the problem. So I will continue to live happily without Technorati just as I seem to have done for a long time:-)
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Catarina — I hadn’t completely filled out my profile either and I had the same experience. Technorati kept telling me my social media URLs weren’t correct and when I tried to insert my profile and update my account it disappeared along with my URLs. However, I did click on my claim and they had crawled my site and found my claim token in today’s post. I agree it’s aggravating and they must be having some technical problem. As long as my blog is listed I’m OK for now. I’ll go back another time to finish filling out my profile when hopefully whatever problems they’re having are fixed.
If your blog is listed, how come I can’t find anything by searching for Jeannette Paladino? :_)
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Richard — They are still “reviewing” my submission. Here is the email I received a little while ago, “Thank you for submitting your blog claim on Technorati. We have successfully crawled your blog and found the claim token, and your claim is now awaiting review.” I’m glad you can’t wait to find me!
I had done this quiet a while ago. I have to admit I haven’t looked at it lately but I see 3 of there bots searching my site which is a good thing.
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Susan — and you’ve been only blogging a year, so you’re ahead of me. I believe that in the early days my blog was actually listed on Technorati. But I think they installed a barrier (the claim token) to ensure that the blog is authentic. I’m sure it’s because of all the spam and fraudulent sites that are floating around on the web.
Submitting my blog to directories is one of those things I still haven’t gotten around to doing. There is so much to be done to make my blog grow. Thankfully I can bookmark your post now and make doing so more of a priority. I’m in the process of working on my site’s SEO, so I wonder if it’s better to wait until I get all of the new SEO done before their bots crawl the site?
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Jeri — As long as Technorati sees the claim token in one of your posts that’s all they need to verify that you are the owner of the blog. The only reason I’d hold off if is you want to have a larger body of work on your site, i.e., more posts for anyone who searches and finds your blog on Technorati.
I’m there Jeannette. Thanks for this reminder.
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Good for you, Pat. I’m waiting for my claim to be approved. They’ve crawled my site.
I haven’t looked at Technorati in years. Your post is a great reminder to go take a look. Thank you for this post!
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You’re welcome, Leora. I’m glad it was helpful.
I think I did it years ago but can’t remember. I thought it didn’t matter at all these days but you made a good point Jeannette about being an authentic blogger. I have bookmarked this article to do it in the next few weeks. Thanks for the information.
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Susan — I think it’s worth the time to do it.
Jeannette,
I claimed my blog on Technorati back in 2005 and then forgot about it. I just checked and I had never completed my profile with my social media info or tags. So, I just updated that. Thanks for the reminder!
I’m going to note in my spreadsheet that I did this. It will be interesting to see if that helps. My ranking is not very good at 386. Then again, I’ve never paid any attention to it. So, I have no idea if it was higher or lower at one time.
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I’m glad I nudged you, Sherryl. Now I have to go in and finish categorizing and tagging my blog! You reminded me.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know you had to join and register with Technorati!
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Teresa, thanks for visiting. Yes, nothing is simple!
Hi,
Thanks for such useful content. Thanks lot.
You’re welcome,techp.