Technorati and Social Search

July 10th, 2006

As Google endures another round of webmaster ranting and raving (another update that has seemingly wiped out up to 90% of some large sites from it’s index), I thought it would be nice to instead take this chance to talk about another rapidly growing form of search.

Whilst traditional search engines are great for looking for information, products, and reviews - their failing is that they can take weeks or months to index new content, and older pages tend to rank better anyway (due mostly to more natural inbound links). Companies are now getting wiser to the web as the important marketing tool that it is, but are starting to realise that it’s also a powerful networking and discussion tool.

So how do we tap into the discussions of the day, and see if anyone is talking about our brand? Blog and social search sites such at Technorati can search all the very latest buzz about your brand, and can give you valuable feedback, or warnings of negative PR as it occurs. As a topical example, try this search for Zidane and see what bloggers are saying about ‘that’ headbutt.

As sites like technorati, digg.com and other social sites become ever more popular, we as businesses must realise that individuals are finding power to express their opinion on a global scale that has never before existed, and more importantly that anyone who is looking for information about your brand can find that opinion instantly. Whilst negative articles can damage your brand - ignoring this feedback can be far more costly in the long run.