Figuring out the Technorati searchlet

neville

I’m still having real headaches with the Technorati searchlet.

Earlier this month, I wrote that it’s never worked on this blog since I started using it in January. Earlier this month, Technorati support said the searchlet was broken. Technorati CEO Dave Sifrey says it’s now fixed.

Well, it still doesn’t work on my blog.

Is it something I’m doing wrong? In a recent comment, Josh Hallett asked whether there might be a correlation between the searchlet not working and my tweaking my DNS settings. I wondered about that, too. But the searchlet searches my blog on the underlying TypePad address – just as the current Google-based search does, and that works just fine.

Today I logged in to my account at Technorati and grabbed the searchlet code again, just in case it’s been udpated again since I last grabbed in a few weeks ago. This is what it is:

<form method="get" action="http://technorati.com/cosmos/search.html" style="width:13em;text-align:left">
<fieldset style="padding:4px">
<legend><a href="http://technorati.com/">Technorati</a> search</legend>
<input type="hidden" name="sub" value="searchlet" />
<input style="width:12em" type="text" name="url" maxlength="255" value="" />
<label style="display:block;padding-top:3px" for="ts_yb" title="NevOn">
<input type="radio" checked="checked" name="from" id="ts_yb" value="http://nevon.typepad.com" /> this blog</label>
<label style="margin-right:.2em" for="ts_www">
<input type="radio" name="from" id="ts_www" value="" /> all blogs</label>
<input type="submit" value="Search" class="search" />
</fieldset>
</form>

So that is the code that works the searchlet, which at the top-right of the screen beneath the standard search box. Yet if you type any keyword in that searchlet box, it will produce zero results.

My test – type in RSS. Zero results. Type in RSS in the Google search, and you’ll get some 600 results.

So what’s wrong here? Why doesn’t it work? Anyone with some helpful ideas?

17 thoughts on “Figuring out the Technorati searchlet”

  3. Try changing the URL where you currently have value=”http://nevon.typepad.com” to value=”http://www.nevon.net/nevon/”. I think that fixes it.

  4. How simple, Stuart. That makes it work. Thanks.
    What I still don’t understand, though, is this – the Google search function has always worked, producing expected results when you search. That searches just on ‘nevon.typepad.com’ without the additional ‘/nevon.’
    Now here’s something curious. With your suggestion, Stuart, in place, searching on my test keyword RSS produced 89 results. Now, if I edit the searchlet code to show my blog URL as http://www.nevon.net/nevon, the search produces just 13 results. I’m guessing that it’s only finding results posted since I mapped my domain name. (I’ve switched the code back to the underlying TypePad address.)
    Yet the same keyword search in the Google search (which searches on the root TypePad address) produces 610 results. Ok, quantity over quality, but why such a big difference?

  5. I did a little digging.
    The underlying problem is that there are a number of different blog URL variants that’ve pinged Technorati. The analysis associated with each variant has fractured the data so that there’s a lot of legacy data bound to http://nevon.typepad.com/nevon and a few recent items bound to http://www.nevon.net/nevon
    Obviously we could improve our capacity for keeping track of data as the URL it’s referenced by changes. We’re working on it 🙂
    As far as this specific case, we’ll be in touch about reconciling the fractured data.
    Have a great day!
    -Ian
    Technorati Engineering

  7. Not sure about you Neville, but I’ve been impressed by Technorati’s speed of response. Definitely a company which is listening to its ‘customers’, responding and reacting. All companies have problems with their product/service but this proactivity shows passion and commitment. A good example of using blogs to enhance the brand experience.

  9. Thanks Dave, I appreciate your keeping an eye on this.
    Morgan, I fully agree with what you say. It is impressive and indeed does illustrate the role a blog can play in customer support and service. In this particular case, far more effectively than using email.
    That doesn’t mean to say, though, that you just post something on your blog whenever you have a customer support or service issue. But it can produce very quick results, as this shows!
    My perception of Technorati’s service has largely been positive, and this experience hugely adds to that (you might be pleased to know that, Dave!).
    If they can fix the problem as well, then ‘happy customer nirvana’ 🙂

  10. While I rejoice in the fact that Technorati has attained something approaching functionality in the last few months, it remains the case that over time it has been my experience that tech support responds to email about 40% of the time and that it is often the case that intervention on the part of Sifry is needed to get a response.
    Still, it is doing much better now that it is no longer distracted by the elections.

  11. Technorati Searchlet doesn’t work on my site?

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  12. Technorati Searchlet doesn’t work on my site?

    Dave, you can restore my sanity. I’m trying to get the Technorati searchlet to work on my Web site and the darn thing just isn’t working out right. I’ve even blogged about it to no avail. Help!…

  13. Technorati Searchlet doesn’t work on my site?

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  14. Technorati Searchlet doesn’t work on my site?

    Dave, you can restore my sanity. I’m trying to get the Technorati searchlet to work on my Web site and the darn thing just isn’t working out right. I’ve even blogged about it to no avail. Help!…

  15. Email support does still leave a lot to be desired, in my experience too. Mostly the long time to wait for a response.
    I’m sure they’re working on improving that.

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