Google Toolbar shows false PageRank for HTTPS pages

[tszyn]

Hello,

I have discovered that the Google Toolbar gives inaccurate information about secure pages (pages whose URLs start with "https").

When you visit a secure (https) page, the PageRank you see in the Google Toolbar is not the PageRank of the page — instead, the toolbar shows you the PR of the root page of the domain.

When you see a https page with a high PageRank, it most likely has a much lower PageRank, or may not even be indexed at all.

Examples:

The Google Adsense login page (https://www.google.com/adsense/login/en_US/) appears to have a PR of 10 (higher than adobe.com) not because it has so many incoming links or because Google has given it an artificial boost — it’s just that the Google Toolbar is reporting the PR of google.com.

If you go to [addons.mozilla.org,...] you'll see that it has a PR of 8. If you then go to any subpage of that site (e.g. any user info page or any add-on page), the toolbar will show a PR of 8 as well.

The issue does not affect certain versions of the Google Toolbar, so you may not be able to see it. I've confirmed that it affects the latest version of the toolbar for Firefox.

Best,

Tomasz Szynalski

[edited by: tedster at 6:34 pm (utc) on Aug. 16, 2009]

[tedster]

Interesting observation - thanks. I rarely use the Google Toolbar but more often grab toolbar data through 3rd party applications. but from what I see, you're right about this. some versions of the toolbar are not reporting accurate and page-specific PR data.