OK – it’s been way too long and and this post is very very late but it’s been just nutty busy in whitehat corporate land.
Back on September 14, 2006 Rand and I hatched a basic little scheme to see how easily we could game Technorati’s Favorites list. Really it should hardly be called gaming at all. We simply asked people to favorite my blog into the top 100. So let’s just get to the results.
As of right now oilman.ca is the #81 most favorited blog at Technorati. And i have a Technorati ranking of 8,432 – down a couple thousand or so positions – very odd.
Below are some stats out of log files – the red line marks the launch of the experiment:
Basically all that happened was there was a spike in pageviews the day Rand announced the contest but readership was more or less unchanged and continues to trend at about the same slope. Technorati sent a whopping 38 visitors in September who were all probably readers here anyhow coming back after favoriting the site. I’d imagine hitting the top 3 or 5 on top favorited sites would be quite good but just being on the list clearly didn’t do me any good.
Keep favoriting me over there and let’s see what happens 
shandyking
October 6th, 2006 at 4:26 pmI like this case study, it actually shows a lot. Some of us push that little Technorati’s Favorites icon on our blogs and now we can see what happens.. Thanks!
graywolf
October 6th, 2006 at 4:32 pmso who are netvibes and blorg?
oilman
October 6th, 2006 at 7:59 pmnetvibes is an ajax-y personal homepage system and I’m assuming blorq is a bloglines kinda thing – I’ve not seen under the hood but all the indicators are there.
Ajay D'Souza
October 7th, 2006 at 2:26 amGlad to know experiment did get you into the top 100. maybe I should launch one of my own
What are you using for the stats that you showed above?
Ajay D'Souza
October 7th, 2006 at 2:27 amAlso, what are you using for displaying the Netscape link?
Justin Pfister
October 9th, 2006 at 9:48 amI learned how to game Technorati a few years ago. I got to #16.. Here’s a link : http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-11-08-n14.html
Brian Mark
October 9th, 2006 at 11:21 amOnce again… the “Trendy” stuff doesn’t provide much value in the realm of visitors. I’ll continue with tried and true SEO and skip this geeky stuff for a while longer, especially in the power tool space.
Brian.
Jack Spirko
October 12th, 2006 at 8:10 amInteresting info! But I am still waiting on you Oilman to favorite me back,
http://www.technorati.com/blogs/www.comtechnews.net
What’s up man? Ya left me hanging,
Jack
oilman
October 12th, 2006 at 9:57 amsorry Jack – got busy and missed a few. You’re favorited.
Jack Spirko
October 12th, 2006 at 12:51 pmTodd,
You Rock bud! By the way check my blog for a post on MSN Search I think you might get some milage out of with discussion etc.
I would post a direct link but I don’t want to be “spammin and jammin” on your blog.
Thanks again and I am thinking to see a real traffic swing from technorati you need to be top five so you are on the list on the popular page. That one could be tough but if you announce this little expirment on your show a few times and keep it running I think you might pull it off.
The number five blog only has 498 favorites, perhaps I may give you a few “Graywolf Style” favorites just to see,
Jack
Terry Ng
October 17th, 2006 at 11:17 amIt was still a good try oilman! I posted the results of my Technorati $100 Challenge as well: http://www.kineda.com/?p=1068
digitalnomad
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:23 amAre you still on the list?
Lee
August 31st, 2008 at 6:54 pmSeveral years later and Oilman still ranks well. The power of SEO!