Update: Dave Sifry responds in the comments, saying “I’ll be very clear about it - Technorati isn’t for sale.” Which means, of course, that Technorati is for sale.
Blog search engine Technorati has always been more secretive about itself than most other startups. They won’t comment on venture financings, for example, even to correct incorrect information. So it means something when CEO Dave Sifry comes out and discloses a ton of information about recent page view and unique visitor growth.
Technorati, he says, has had 9 million unique visitors over the last thirty days, up from 3.5 million two months ago (that’s such a dramatic increase as to appear implausible). And while he isn’t disclosing actual page views, he says they increased 53% in March, and 141% over the last three months. Wow.
That’s big growth for the four year old blog search engine. But, why is Technorati suddenly so open with its data?
It could be two reasons. They took a reputation hit in December when Hitwise reported that Google Blogsearch had overtaken them. When Kevin Marks, a key developer, left the company in February to join Google, people started to talk. And Technorati’s investors reportedly started looking for a new CEO. So Sifry might be simply defending his turf by saying “look at how well we are doing.”
A second reason for the report is that Technorati is now serious about getting acquired, and this is a marketing document for would-be suitors.
Either way, data transparency is good. I hope Technorati makes a habit out of posting their internal number.
I also pulled Comscore data to compare to the Hitwise and Quantcast reports that Sifry showed in his post. Comscore also says that Technorati has more unique visitors and page views than Google Blogsearch. Just don’t ask about what happened last June (Technorati was too small at that point for Comscore to properly measure it).
The time to get acquired is now. Although they are still number 1 blog search engine, they have failed to innovate and have a number of blunders in their history (the latest is the oh-so-quickly-forgotten WTF). Their potential still waits to be used; if they can’t do it, maybe some giant can.
Mike,
Thanks for the write-up. It’s remarkable how people love to read the tea leaves, and speculate on “mating dances” and the like. I’ll be very clear about it - Technorati isn’t for sale. We’re very happy doing what we’re doing, and we’ve been seeing significant growth. Can’t a guy just come out and crow a bit about things when times are good and there’s lots of positive changes afoot?
Dave
Technorati is far better than Google Blogsearch (in my opinion).
Suddenly exposing these numbers does seem like they’re for sale.
I think that the founders of YouTube also declared that the company isn’t for sale a few months before the acquisition by Google…
But Dave Youtube said the same things before getting cozy with Google, similar were the press releases and other gestures of Skype before acquisition.
And now we are watching Bebo and Facebook doing the dancing, with Technorati just joining the Party
Interesting. I am suprised that technorati had not been sold already
Who knows maybe google will buy them..
Whats even more interesting is that Dave is policing the blogosphere commenting on each post “No guys we are not for sale, its just that we have started to have fun :)”. Sure we are starting to have fun.
Something seems to be cooking here
check this comment on marketing pilgrim as well
http://www.marketingpilgrim.co.....ment-24032
I use technorati for blog ranking but that’s about it, maybe once in a while to do a blog search but I don’t see people staying there for hours like youtube or other sites, can they really be getting this much traffic or is it just all the blogs pinging them? What else does everyone else use Technorati for? and do you use it often?
I have posted a counterpoint to dave’s technorati vs. google blog search and I call it “Why comparing Technorati to Google Blog Search is NOT valid” - click my name if you want to see it - too long to post here.
Richard, I agree - I go there to see if I’m any cooler day-by-day (ie, my links in)… and hoping to break a new barrier on my ranking.
But about 6 months ago I stopped using them to do searches because it just wasn’t returing the results that I needed, and there was a lot of, er, sifting.
I’ve used Google’s blog search for a while and have been pretty happy with it - maybe I need to go back and give Technorati another try.
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
I think a lot of this is due to traffic from regular Google - Technorati tag pages do very well for key topics and I would guess they drive a significant amount of traffic.
I also wonder what the stats are on their widgets and other tools.
Allen - I went to your blog post to leave a comment but one I hit the comment link it hangs… do I have to register?
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
It is a well known strategy to say “we are doing great”, “we aren’t for sale” to help with the negotiating. Saying, “uhhh, our growth has slowed”, and “yep, we are for sale” doesn’t exactly lead to a position of strenth at the negotiating table.
That being said, it will be interesting to see if they are actually acquired. As per David’s comments (#2 above), I do wish them well either way.
Jason - you don’t need to register - give it another try - it appears to be hanging half of the time - but it does load - just imagine being on a 2400 baud modem - let me check into why this is happening all of a sudden.
thank you for the notice!
AHA! I found it - the cocomment module I added a few months ago is not loading from their server hence the slow load. I removed it for now so it’s back to speedy gonzalez
(i know the TC readers don’t care 
Well to be fair, Mike and Dave, no company is ever really “up for sale” unless you post your assets on eBay or have a going out of business sale. Technorati is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and even Dave has his price. I know he’s having fun with it now, well deserved growth that didn’t come easy. We both know a lot about that. However, if the check is big enough, everyone is for sale, at all times.
Frankly, Technorati is shy on marketing, I must agree. Time for Dave and company to start pounding the pavement a bit. Marketing isn’t just hype and PR, its about strategically building market share, and Technorati could do a much bigger job of it. This is a good start Dave, keep going!
Dave Sifry - You’ve disclosed so little information to date, that it’s hard NOT to speculate now that you are. Besides, it’s fun to stir things up a bit.
YUP, they are looking for a buyer. Nice call but who’s gonna buy it?
Mike´s update just made me laugh, Dave if there is nothing special going on, why are you hopping around blogs that are mentioning the “Mating” word.
Allen the points you made are nice and valid, because referring to Google Blog Search is just not valid any more. Some novice might think that he can not search for blogs on Google itself. Check this for instance and see the top result.
http://www.google.com/search?c.....gle+Search
Its a search query “companies i like to profile”. In fact I never go to Google Blog search for even blog searches. The Google one box does the trick.
I would have sure linked to your post to Allen, but trackbacks never appear on your site, so it will take real motivation to do that.
Bilal - I will email you about the trackback issue - I can promise you when I see valid ones I do approve them! But with 4500 a day of spam, it takes time to look thru them all.
The traffic uptick does baffle me a bit. Then again, so does Flixter’s increase.
“(Technorati was too small at that point for Comscore to properly measure it).”
Last June? That doesn’t make sense from the chart so I’m missing something here.
Google traffic to technorati is a plausible explanation. I’ve gotten drops and jumps as large percentagewise as the recent uptick at technorati. But obviously I’m just speculating on that.
I guess all we can do now is and wait where Technorati ends.
Some of you may have noticed this, but it seems that Technorati has been doing some SEO work, because every time I search for a company name or popular topic, the Technorati ‘tag’ page comes up in the top 2-5 results, eg:
http://www.google.com/search?q=wordpress
in that case, it even appears before the main Wordpress support site. What I would like to know is, what portion of this growth is driven by referrals from Google, and is this likely to last?
Oh, and the inbound links to the ‘tag’ page is because of all the blogging plugins and sites out there that link to Technorati when they display their tags for a post - so for eg. if I tag a post with ‘wordpress’, most plugins will link that tag back through to Technorati
Excellent point Thomas.
While Technorati’s numbers are impressive I fear that the wag has this one right. Technorati lacks strategic focus.
They also lack marketing. Not marketing in the sense that R.J. mentions. More along the lines of an easy to use complete product offering focused on a specific task sense of marketing.
In the beginning I loved their concept, but i feel they have failed to innovate. Plus I love the fact that they are putting up such a good fight.
They are for sale - Mike but to just
“Stir things up” … can be considered wrong
- What if someone had the ability to affect your bottom line -
and did it “just to stir things up” would you be happy?
- I am not saying you have a good or bad affect, -RB
Pallet - people spend all day stirring out stuff up. Sifry quite voluntarily opened this can of worms.