Why has this runeword failed?

I am a ladder character on normal difficulty and got this for my hireling:

The name of the bow was: Short Battle Bow in gray. I got this runeword from Arreat Summit, the name is Edge.

I don't get it though, all that happened was the name changed to Gemmed Short Battle Bow

What am I doing wrong?

Solution 1:

As per Arreat Summit:

"The following Rune Words will only work on the Battle.net Realms for Ladder Characters only. They will not work for single or open characters or non-ladder characters"

It sounds like your character is no longer a ladder character. The ladder was reset on October 25, 2011. All previously ladder characters were moved to non-ladder.