July 5, 2003

New Technorati Pinger is active: Hot 'n fresh weblog indexing

Over the past months, I've had a lot of people send me email or leave comments asking how they can get their weblog indexed by Technorati.  This weekend, I had a few hours of free time and I whipped a new feature with two interfaces:  It is a standard XML-RPC ping server (like www.weblogs.com) that you can add to your weblog software configuration (or that hosting providers can use) that will immediately add your weblog into a special high-priority queue for Technorati's indexing runs.  This means faster, more accurate search data.

To use the pinger, there are two interfaces: an XML-RPC interface at http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping which understands the weblogUpdates.ping and weblogUpdates.extendedPing specifications detailed in the weblogs.com specification and the blo.gs specification.  I don't have a SOAP 1.1 version done yet, but I can add that, if people want it - leave a comment below.

If you're using a modern weblog package like Moveable Type, blosxom, pMachine or many others, simply add http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping to your notifications configuration.

The other way of notifying Technorati that you've updated your weblog is the web interface available at http://www.technorati.com/ping.html  Simply fill in your weblog name and its URL and voila, your weblog will be added into the fast indexing queue.  Once you've done it, you can even bookmark the page so that you can easily notify Technorati whenever you update or add items to your blog.

Of course, if you're currently notifying www.weblogs.com, www.blo.gs, or www.blogrolling.com when your weblog is updated, your weblog will continue to make its way into the Technorati index, albeit a bit more slowly.  Notifying Technorati directly will put your weblog (or weblog hosting site) onto a higher priority track to get included in the index.

These two features are new, so there might be some downtime or fixes during the next few days if I need to fix a bug or two, but the interface and the ping URLs are set in stone, so if you are a blogging tool author you don't need to worry that the service will move to a different location, or that the API will change.

A new wiki page describes how to add the ping service to your favorite weblogging tool's configuration.

As always, feedback is appreciated. 
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Posted by dsifry at July 5, 2003 10:54 PM | TrackBack | View blog reactions
Comments

Now, if only the programmer would update w.bloggar. ;)

Posted by: Chris Pirillo at July 6, 2003 7:38 PM

You left out a dreaded slash on the first reference to:
http:/rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Posted by: Jeff Jarvis at July 12, 2003 3:22 PM

Thanks for adding this.

Is anyone reading this familiar with Radio Userland? I can't find anything in the prefs that allows me to add this. Am I missing it, or can I just add it to my template in some way?

Also, I don't understand a data item reporte on the Cosmos page. For my site it say, "23 Inbound Blogs, 1775 Inbound Links." I know what the first # indicates, but not the second. The help page showing Cosmos results looks a bit different than the results I get. (It also shows a google rank--is this a feature under development.)

I've only been at this a few weeks, so bear with me. Thanks.

Posted by: Dave Cullen at July 12, 2003 5:25 PM

have you thought about supporting the blo.gs cloud interface?

http://blo.gs/cloud.php

Posted by: jim winstead at July 19, 2003 12:31 PM

I came across this from a link on André Venter's weblog. Userland just implemented Trackback for Radio. I'm wondering if the code can be modified or reused to add Technorati.

I'll link this on my weblog and email Jake Savin to see how possible this is.

Posted by: Steve Kirks at August 9, 2003 7:23 AM

I've hacked Radio to auto populate the trackback URL box on the home page post form. This will at least help users who post via the desktop website home page.

Here's the post with instructions:

Link

Posted by: Steve Kirks at August 16, 2003 2:51 PM