Why is Technorati so volatile?

Wednesday, August 1, 2007 by Dave Winer.

I probably shouldn't watch the rank of this blog over at Technorati, but I do.  

It's like watching the value of a stock portfolio fluctuate over time.  

It seemed to have something to do with what was happening here on the blog. 

But last night, in a few hours, the rank went from 122 to 270, after spending a couple of weeks steadily going down (which is really up) from around 150.  

What could account for such a huge overnight drop?  

We don't really know how Technorati works, it's a secret algorithm, and it seems a buggy one at that. Yet the many treat it as authoritative.  

Maybe someone can explain why rank can seem so volatile? 

PS: As if in response, it now says my site is ranked 120. Geez Louise. What's next? 

PPS: Please, could someone with some logevity and system management expertise buy Technorati. Think of it this way. McAfee in some sense owns the Oakland Colliseum. Monster owns Candlestick. AT&T owns the stadium where the Giants play. Okay, what if IBM owned Technorati, it would then be called the IBM 100. Think about the goodwill you'd buy. You'd be famous as the arbiter of popularity in the blogosphere. You'd be thanked for bringing stability to a metric that desperately needs it. Sifry, if this approach works, you owe me 1 percent.