WordPress Admin Dashboard - Technorati or Google Blogsearch?

On the right side of your WordPress admin dashboard you can see your incoming links. Until recently the data was fetched from Technorati.

This changed in WordPress 2.3. Now the data is fetched from Google Blogsearch.

While I think that 2.3 is a big step forward, I prefer Technorati as the source for my incoming links. So I changed it.

If you want to do the same, you can download the changed index-extra.php (zip) or get your hands dirty - it’s pretty easy.

Open the index-extra.php file from your wp-admin directory in an editor. Replace this part of the 2.3-version

case 'incominglinks' :
$rss_feed = apply_filters( 'dashboard_incoming_links_feed', 'http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss&partner=wordpress&q=link:' . trailingslashit( get_option('home') ) );
$more_link = apply_filters( 'dashboard_incoming_links_link', 'http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&scoring=d&partner=wordpress&q=link:' . trailingslashit( get_option('home') ) );
$rss = @fetch_rss( $rss_feed );
if ( isset($rss->items) && 1 < count($rss->items) ) { // Technorati returns a 1-item feed when it has no results
?>
<h3><?php _e('Incoming Links'); ?> <cite><a href="<?php echo htmlspecialchars( $more_link ); ?>"><?php _e('More »'); ?></a></cite></h3>
<ul>
<?php
$rss->items = array_slice($rss->items, 0, 10);
foreach ($rss->items as $item ) {
?>
<li><a href="<?php echo wp_filter_kses($item['link']); ?>"><?php echo wptexturize(wp_specialchars($item['title'])); ?></a></li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
<?php
}
break;

with this part from the 2.2.2-version

case 'incominglinks' :
$rss = @fetch_rss('http://feeds.technorati.com/cosmos/rss/?url='. trailingslashit(get_option('home')) .'&partner=wordpress');
if ( isset($rss->items) && 1 < count($rss->items) ) { // Technorati returns a 1-item feed when it has no results
?>
<h3><?php _e('Incoming Links'); ?> <cite><a href="http://www.technorati.com/search/<?php echo trailingslashit(get_option('home')); ?>?partner=wordpress"><?php _e('More »'); ?></a></cite></h3>
<ul>
<?php
$rss->items = array_slice($rss->items, 0, 10);
foreach ($rss->items as $item ) {
?>
<li><a href="<?php echo wp_filter_kses($item['link']); ?>"><?php echo wptexturize(wp_specialchars($item['title'])); ?></a></li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
<?php
}
break;

Save it, put it in your wp-admin folder, and that’s it. Incoming links once again served by Technorati.