Google v. Technorati (and Hitwise v. Comscore)

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1. Andrew
   

   December 28th, 2006 at 10:41 pm

   Mike, what’s your take on Quantcast?

   Link to their traffic comparison of these two blog search engines:
   http://www.quantcast.com/chart.....blogsearch|wd:com.technorati

   I’ve been eyeing these guys as an alternative to Alexa, but I’m not sure what to make of their data. Oddly enough, their graph almost seems to match Comscore.

2. Andrew
   

   December 28th, 2006 at 10:47 pm

   It’s also interesting to note that, according to Quantcast, Google Blogsearch has a lot more regular users than Technorati (relatively). I would have suspected the opposite to be true.

   Any insight into that from Hitwise or Comscore?

3. Garth
   

   December 28th, 2006 at 11:03 pm

   Comscore has ~3 million devices installed correct?

   Anything that takes a sample is never going to provide exact data, but I think subscribers in the ecommerce area have found it to track pretty close to reality. I have had retailers tell me it is within 15% of their exact numbers.

   Hitwise has data collecting units in small ISP’s, but it seems to me it does not count the work surfer correctly and their numbers don’t match the mainstream as well as comscore.

4. Anita
   

   December 28th, 2006 at 11:31 pm

   WOW! I was wondering why I was getting all these hits from the Google blog search all of a sudden. My little site went from ~50 hits per day to ~200, the difference seemingly entirely Google blog searchers. Although it could have also been timing … most searches were for “Wii Crack” … I doubt the searchers would have found what they wanted given I run a humor site.

   Is there a way for us common folk to get statistics from hitwise? Seems like a great product, and the network-centric model makes much more sense than Alexa. I’d imagine tons of site owners and bloggers would love to get access to it, even if there was a small fee.

5. Peter
   

   December 29th, 2006 at 12:51 am

   talking about numbers that small is pretty slack. how about talking relative percentages and growth rates - stuff that makes sense? it is news that some service now has 0.000000whatever% of the overall search market, or is it more important to document the final demise of Technocrapi?

6. Ramki
   

   December 29th, 2006 at 1:13 am

   With a sample you never get exact values, but you can get values that are pretty close to the exact values. It all depends on how you choose the sample. You can get much more accurate than 85% provided you have a good sample representative of the entire population. It is much more difficult to do for the population browsing the web compared to other areas of work.
   I have no idea about who all have the comScore devices installed, but if they have it across a diverse section of people who can represent the population which surfs the net then that data would be more or less accurate.

7. Fashion Industry Ceo
   

   December 29th, 2006 at 1:17 am

   I have received a increased amount of visits from google blog search lately!

8. Osman
   

   December 29th, 2006 at 3:03 am

   Google seems to go on like this. Recently i have noticed that i have been using Google Blog Search instead of technorati. Sometimes technorati doesn’t update the blogs itself. I visit my page and ping it, so it is updated. Sometimes it works perfect, no need to ping. This is why i prefer Google. Without problem!

9. Stat Head
   

   December 29th, 2006 at 3:56 am

   Garth,

   I believe comScore *active* monthly sample actually hovers between 750k - 1 million — not 3 million.

10. Justin Thorp
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:50 am

    I have been using Google Blog Search more and more too. It is more dependable. All too often I have gotten the error message from Technorati that they were getting high volume of searches and that I should try again later. Frankly, that is not acceptable.

    With Google Blog Search, I get the results a lot faster. They have the crazy huge and fast Google infrastructure to back them up.

    It also seems like I get better results using Google Blog Search. I have an idea in my mind of the kind of results that I am looking for when I do a search. I walk away more satisfied when I’m using Google Blog Search.

    Technorati has a bunch of features that Google Blog Search doesn’t provide. I use Technorati when I want those extra features.

11. Deivd
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 7:57 am

    One reason I use google instead of technorati is cause you dont have to be pinging to update content, sometimes that task can be forgotten.

12. Adrian Keys
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 8:15 am

    “Google seems to go on like this. Recently i have noticed that i have been using Google Blog Search instead of technorati. Sometimes technorati doesn’t update the blogs itself. I visit my page and ping it, so it is updated. Sometimes it works perfect, no need to ping. This is why i prefer Google. Without problem!” - Osman

    Cant believe it…I think this would have been my exact comments. Still dont have a feel for exactly what Technorati does…sometimes I wonder if the site works….

13. Patricia
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 8:17 am

    I use both because they both give different results - there are things one will pull up that the other doesn’t, though Google’s always my default blog search tool - ever since they added the link on the news page, it’s extra helpful too.

14. John Koetsier
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 8:34 am

    This is not surprising from another angle:

    Technorati is so buggy, slow, and funky that I and other connected, tech savvy people that I know have stopped using it.

15. Robert
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 8:49 am

    I have to agree with John. I have a Technorati account, but I don’t use it anymore. They really need to work on their scaling and make it fast and smooth. It also isn’t very intuitive.

16. Alfred Toh
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:30 am

    Technorati seems to be going downhill when Niall left, then a few other early members of the team left. The search on Technorati has been acting weird for a while, times when there were more on the next page and clicks on next brings up the “oops - something bad happened yada yada yada”. Few nights ago, search on anything returns no results.
    Then came the site overhaul, from a great design to a not so great design.

    ==================================================
    Payscroll.com - The answer to the “How much am I worth?” question. Coming soon

17. Mano
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:41 am

    Technorati is a marketing company, run by a blowhard Founder, begging to be bought by a media counter, like AC Neilsen. the standalone future isnt bright without great technical leadership and Google wanting in. I hope selling out asap is in the Technorati plans.

18. Brian Mulvaney
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 11:10 am

    Mike,

    I don’t understand why you give any credence to Comscore for this kind of metric. Tech savvy people who use blog search engines are extremely unlikely to be running the Comscore panel agent. Comscore’s sample size for things you care about has got to be vanishingly small. You’d get more representative blog search market share and usage stats by polling your own audience.

    Hitwise is more likely to be accurate in this area in so far as their stats include usage from individuals who would never knowingly install a measurement agent on their computer. But we don’t know much more about the quality of their data other than they buy it from ISPs whose customers don’t realize their clickstream is being sold off.

19. Hexx
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 12:39 pm

    it’s a shame i feel that technorati has a superior product, they should get the hits for it.

    there are definately problems with technorati but i find what i’m looking for on technorati usually and don’t on google blog search.

20. toivo
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 12:46 pm

    what about bloglines search? they have excellent results, less noise.

21. john
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    Technorati blows! Always has and always will.

22. Peter
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 3:58 pm

    Michael,

    You have again made the same mistake: you are taking US-ONLY data and extrapolating it to the world.

    “Their data is saying that this week, for the first time, Google Blogsearch surpassed Technorati in total visits.

    Google Blog Search just passed 0.0025% of total internet traffic, according to Hitwise, v. 0.0023% for Technorati.”

    And yet, very clearly on the first chart it says “Market Share of US Internet Visits”.

    Did you just not see the “US”? You make this same mistake about once a month. Ratings companies sometimes report US traffic, and sometimes global traffic. Taking a US number and claiming “total internet traffic” isn’t just misleading, it’s wrong.

23. Dem Santos
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 4:03 pm

    Mr. Mulvaney,

    Actually, Hitwise buys their data from a lot of DIAL-UP ISPs, which makes their data even less reliable, given your argument that blog search users are more likely to be tech savvy.

24. David Mackey
    

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:47 pm

    I prefer Google Blog to Technorati. I signed up with Technorati and began using them, but maybe I am just making stupid errors in my searches, I find things on Google so much easier (and that was a horribly written sentence I’m not going to rewrite).

25. Aldian Prakoso
    

    January 18th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    I like Google more than Technorati. With Google, it’s like I can get “everything” in one place: blog, email, group, search, sitemap.