Today, Technorati, Dave Sifry's "science project" turned blogospheric barometer, celebrates its third anniversary with the roll-out of an "updated version" of its site and service.

On the Technorati weblog Dave explains the four major front and back-end changes. As Sifry explains, Technorati has improved its "core search technologies that index new information within minutes of being posted to the Web." The Search page has been re-designed for ads to be "less intrusive" and to have "more results above the fold", as well as " better sorting options - including sorting by language, authority, and freshness." New link-counting mechanisms promise to give bloggers better results on who's linking to them at any given time.

Other features include making it easier to find new blogs via the Discover section, as well as updates to its Popular and Favorites features.

Dave also notes that Technorati is now "integrated with" Wall Street Journal Online, similar to their projects with Washingtonpost.com, Der Spiegel, and Associated Press.