New Feature Added To Technorati's Interface

Checked out Technorati this Saturday morning and what did I find? A surprise package.

The Technorati guys have added a new feature to the site's interface. This time you'll see something that's labelled "Authority" next to your usual ranking score as you can see on the screenshot.

My normal ranking score stands at 96,332 and the new Authority score shows 47. It doesn't show the number of incoming links anymore.

So what does that mean?

So far I couldn't find any explanation regarding this new feature. By looking at the various scores attained by some of my incoming links, I can deduce that the higher your Authority score then it's obvious the higher IS your "Authority" as a blog.

I believe we'll get to know more in the coming days about this new development at Technorati. Meanwhile, keep your fingers crossed that you'll get a higher number this time against the Authority score.

And over at Performancing, Ryan Caldwell is talking about how to diversify your links in 5 different ways.

It's obvious from the latest Page Rank update that Google is strongly buffering the effect of certain kinds of links. What kind of links? That's a complex question, but I think I can answer it with two words: undiversified links."

He's saying that the key to linkbuilding now is diversification. Here are his 5 pointers:

• Stop pointing incoming links to your homepage
  
• Diversify the location of your links
  
• Diversify your anchor text
  
• Get article level links from strong sites
  
• Comment at other blogs

To comprehend these 5 pointers, go over to Caldwell's post at Performancing and read about them.

Grab It! Or Snap Out Of It!

One Man's Meat Is Another Man's Poison: Some people are snapping up Snap Preview Anywhere because they think this pop-up widget is cool and helpful. For others, they are snapping back because they think this gimmick is downright annoying or even a pain in the you-know-where.

Love It Or Hate It: Since it was made available to users sometime last year, Snap Preview Anywhere has, like PayPerPost, come under some heavy artillery fire. But not without some defensive manoeuvre by those who see some benefits coming from it.

What's The Intended User Benefit?: Erik Wingren, head of Snap UX Research says:

"In a nutshell, our product is intended to enable users to 'look before leaping', saving many people a wasted click. I will, however, be the first to admit that this is a product that some people don't like, and this is why we have made sure to include a simple method to opt-out for those who don't like it (click the 'options' menu in the upper right of the preview bubble)."

Here are some gathered views on the pros and cons. You come to your own conclusion.

Snap Pros:

• You can hover over links to make sure you type the URLs correctly.
  
  
• You can quickly test for link rot in your blogroll and other links.
  
  
• User can get a glimpse of where the link is at.
  
  
• Not a gimmick but a step forward to a new service dimension for blog readers.

Snap Cons:

• Annoying because when it hovers over a link its view is blocked by the pop-up.
  
  
• Previewing functionality is indiscriminate. Every single link on the page gets this preview.
  
  
• The technology loads more javascripts onto a page, affecting loading times.
  
  
• It draws the eye away from the task at hand, causes annoyance and loss of concentration.
  
  
• It's bling, a silly little shiney thing designed specifically to increase awareness of Snap.com.
  
  Well, to each his own. So where do you stand, folks?