We’ve always loved Technorati. In the 14 months that we’ve been blogging, we’ve discovered that it is — by far — the most reliable tool for measuring a blog’s readership and influence.

PubSub, quite simply, doesn’t work. IceRocket got off to a promising start but has fallen well behind. TTLB is obviously limited. Most of the other tools aren’t worth mentioning.

And Google? Its ranking methodologies are a black box that today is valued mostly because of Google’s market power; it’s like saying Windows is the best OS because Microsoft dominates the PC market.

For these reasons, despite its flaws, we’ve trusted Technorati.

However, the past two months have been a real disappointment. After Technorati went a month without updating our blog link totals, we e-mailed David Sifry and asked if he could check on it. He was nice enough to do a manual update; that was in mid-April.

Since then, nothing. A few days ago, we e-mailed Dave again and he ran another manual update. The result: only four more links from new sites were added — after a month. My traffic stats show that dozens of sites — not four — linked to Media Orchard during that period.

Lately, sites that reliably popped up on our Technorati page when they linked to us — like Mike’s Points and paidContent.org – aren’t showing up at all. And of course, other sites, like Romenesko, have never showed up when they linked to us. We only know about the referrals from the traffic reports.

We know. Some people think we shouldn’t pay attention to this stuff. We disagree.

Frankly, we think it matters that a company that presents itself — and is widely recognized as — the premier authority on the blogosphere follows through on its brand promise. We think it matters that they do what they say they do.

Dave Sifry has been incredibly responsive when we’ve contacted him. But there are systemic problems, obviously, and they need to be addressed.

The upside for Technorati is that a service like Technorati is very much needed, and will become even more valuable over time. But as its users depend upon it more and more, it’s going to have to keep up with their expectations. The surest way to kill any growing company is to overpromise and underdeliver.

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