For a start, even though Google reports (now) over 300,000 results, it actually only presents you with the first 1,000. The others are not accessible. So Google is lying to you in a way. Technorati, on the other hand, lets you get to all of its 15,000 links.

Secondly, Google is also indexing all the other links to the same thing. For instance, it links to the blog post, but also to the blog post’s history, such as it’s entry in a month listing, a tag listing and so on. Hence Google is actually inflating the numbers by indexing the same thing several times.

Furthermore, Technorati allows you to check the search by “authority” – in other words is the blog posting from a well-recognised blog? Google’s Blogsearch decides for you its “relevance” (whatever that means) or date only.

Raw numbers are not the best measure of things – Technorati may have fewer results, but it actually shows it is superior to Google, rather than inferior.

Wow! What an incredible example. That about says everything there is to say about Technorati’s decline as a premier social Web tool.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ari.