Page Rank Update - April 2010

[xuberantguy]

i have noticed the google page rank update, did any one else also noticed?

[Gorgwatcher]

Google has just updated its Toolbar PageRank.

IMO this is a way to distract attention of SEO's from the yesterday Caffeine update which was a total mess. It did shake some very big sites traffic and ranking which finally led google to revert it.

What is your suggestion?

[edited by: tedster at 4:24 pm (utc) on Apr 3, 2010]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[tedster]

First, it takes a while to export new toolbar PageRank. Second, I don't think the different Google teams involved are coordinated with each other, and a PR Update doesn't impact anything but the toolbar.

No distractions, IMO - it was just time. I mean, how distracting is a new TBPR value, anyway?

[textex]

I don't have the toolbar installed. How are you guys checking PR?

[Lexur]

Try searching page rank checker.

[Raavi]

Yes, I could see the PR changes to our sites. Seems to be good.

[c41lum]

Yeah we have seen a toolbar update.

[textex]

What does PR even tell us? I don't see it being a consistent indicator since sites we monitor with hardly any links (all links are scraper) have higher PR than sites with lots of good backlinks including DMOZ.

[tedster]

Try this thread for the current discussion: Does Page Rank Still Matter? - 2010 edition [webmasterworld.com]

[dickbaker]

Well, that was weird. My site has been PR4 for years, now it's PR3. I don't think it's affected my search results, though. Maybe that's coming later.

[TheMadScientist]

Maybe that's coming later.

Nope, you've been there for a period of time and didn't know it... IMO you definitely have it backward. The published number is an out-of-date approximation of the real number (internal) your home page had calculated at some point in the past and your rankings would have been impacted by it before you ever knew what happened or why. It does not usually work the other way around, unless your real (internal) PR is still decreasing...

How many times can people here say: 'Don't pay much attention to TBPR, except possibly as a 'notation' because it's FUD.', before it sinks in? No offense to any posters who still think it's important or will tell them something currently accurate for some reason, but IMO you're falling for G's 'Feel the FUD; See the FUD; Be the FUD...' campaign.

I remember quite a while ago when there were people from G still posting here and they (Adam Lasnik (SP?) for sure) were involved in a lengthy discussion with us about possibly removing TBPR, and I personally thought they should, but since they won't I wish they would at least turn it brown, so we can just say 'See how brown it is, that's because it's s***' to those who don't understand exactly what it is.

[internetheaven]

so we can just say 'See how brown it is, that's because it's s***' to those who don't understand exactly what it is.

I like the Toolbar PR as a user and as a Webmaster I understand it's limitations. What's your problem? What evil is it doing to you that has you so overly aggressive?

[TheMadScientist]

Because it's an inaccurate source of information causing confusion to many that IMO skews the web and adds to the 'artificial schemes' Google is so set against...

If people didn't know what the approximate PR of a site was 3 months ago and think it's accurate today links would be based on different criteria, site value would be based on different criteria, and quite a bit of new webmaster and those who don't know any better's confusion would be eliminated.

I honestly feel sorry for those who think 'TBPR' is accurate and means a site they buy will rank when what they're buying is merely part of a network passing the PR to it and as soon as they buy and it's removed from the network, not only could all the adspam the domain has held count against it if it's not reset to '0' when the ownership changes and the adspam is removed, the PageRank, even in the toolbar, will disappear.

If the person was more well informed or TBPR disappeared the squatter selling the site wouldn't be able to say, 'But it's a PageRank 5 website' and artificially inflate the value of the site based on a FUD number. (The same 'thought' and 'feeling' about the situation applies to buying/selling links.)

It's cool you know what it is and that it's out of date and think it adds some value of some type for you, but you are not the norm, and it's really a FUD indicator for many purposes, but unfortunately the masses don't understand that part, because it's much easier to sell 'visible and measurable' than it is to convince people it's inaccurate and should be taken with a grain of salt if factored in to any decision at all.

"See this, right here in the toolbar? This is what Google's importance of the site (page) is, I know because it says right on Google.com this is how important this site (page) is perceived as. Now how important does Google perceive the other site (page) you are looking at as? It's only a 4... and going from a 4 to a 5 is exponential, like a Richter Scale, so mine isn't just a little bit more important, it's already 10 times more important to Google than the other site (page) you're looking at..." I could convince just about anyone of the importance of TBPR, but always get flack for trying to enlighten people about what it really is. Go figure... I guess maybe I would get along better if I was part of the FUD Factory instead of against it, or something?

I don't really know, but it p***** me off they publish a FUD number and then don't explain exactly what it is on their site, without even letting people know how it works: 'PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.'

[google.com...]

Do you seriously think the Green Pixel Dust and the page explaining it don't artificially skew the value of sites and links across the entire web? And, not only the value, but which sites link where and why they link there? IMO the display of TBPR skews the entire web, because many consult the ToolBar (or other source for published PR) before they even place or request a link and if the PR is not high enough in one direction the link, which would have otherwise been place, is withheld... It doesn't help people make good linking decisions which are based on the site (page) content... IMO It skews decisions and creates an imbalance.

* You should read back through that thread some time if you think I'm being harsh, because I think I remember one poster being very harsh and apologizing to the Reps reading for the abruptness (or something to that effect) and the Rep saying they were often the same way internally. I think the Rep even went so far as to say they thought it was one of the things making them good at what they do because debate and differing opinions brought about answers and they appreciated the candor, or something to that effect...

[BillyS]

IMO the display of TBPR skews the entire web, because many consult the ToolBar (or other source for published PR) before they even place or request a link and if the PR is not high enough in one direction the link, which would have otherwise been place, is withheld... It doesn't help people make good linking decisions which are based on the site (page) content... IMO It skews decisions and creates an imbalance.

I hope the above isn't still true. At one time I thought it was important to check out the PR green before linking to a site - but I stopped that habit about three years ago. Today, I'll link to any site that has useful information.

We're back to a PR6 with this update - which SEEMS to make sense given the number of links we've been attracting lately. (Our traffic doubled in December and the additional exposure has resulted in a lot of natural linking coming our way.)

[TheMadScientist]

I hope the above isn't still true.

It is, and it's why I keep saying the bleeping FUD has to bleeping stop.

Check out this discussion: Webmasters Who Discount My Site Because of PR [webmasterworld.com]

Here's a couple of quotes:

"Well, you're offering me a link off a pr2 page and my page is a pr 3 page. etc."

Later, someone states if a page is 'grey bar' which could easily be because G didn't 'push all the FUD', the page is new and 'the FUD has not been generated for the public to view yet' or 'the FUD is unavailable at this time' for some other reason on the day (or even at the time of day) they try to check the FudRank before they link they wouldn't even take a link from it, which means there's probably no way they'd even consider giving one to it... Absolutely skewing the links on the web IMO.

It's been noted here repeatedly pages at times go 'grey FUD' for one reason or another, which does not necessarily mean anything is wrong with the page, but could rather be an issue with the ToolBar FUD, the FUD Server, or the FUD Delivery System used by ToolBar FudRank alternative display methods, like FireFox 'FudRank' type plugins. The page retains it's actual rankings, and it's traffic, so it's not a big deal because everyone knows it could easily be a ToolBar FudRank glitch or the page is new and a quality topical page should get the link they were considering, right? Uh, not exactly...

Heck, I'd take a link on a grey barred page with no pr if it was themed and had good content.

I wouldn't. Whilst the actual number of the Pagerank is not so much a concern to me, at least having a number is.

The short of it is: IMO As long as FudRank is displayed it will be reviewed by some (IMO probably many) people prior to linking and it will in some way influence the web, and the links that would otherwise naturally be placed. IMO this skews the web and the way it is linked together, and, again IMO, not for the better, because some webmasters, rather than linking to 'great new content not yet found by many and/or assigned a high enough level of FUD', will opt for 'not as good of content but way higher FudRank.'

Using the reasoning, 'Who would link to a 'Grey FUD' (or lower than FR3, even) page anyway? It must be a 'bad' (unimportant) page according to Google's info to not even display FUD in some way...' is a fairly easy way to do things, but IMO it doesn't help separate the wheat from the chaff, because the, 'If it's unimportant to G, then it's unimportant to me.', type reasoning doesn't help them find the great content and rank it accordingly a single bit. It simply reinforces the known and makes it tougher for the new quality content to move through the system.

[moftary]

Well if this would add any value to the thread I can tell that the real export was on 28 march.

~mOftary

[solidradicle]

Yes. It happened.... on 3rd April 2010.

[Pass the Dutchie]

We launched 10 new <competitive widget> info sites a little over THREE weeks ago so I am impressed a new site can get PR in such a short time. Normally I would have to wait at least 2 PR cycles for home page AND internal pages to get PR.

Prior to this PR update, grey bar would be treated as sceptical (possible ban) and link exchange is far less successful. Now that all sites have a healthy PR5 web masters are 10x more willing to exchange links.

If having PR increases link building ten fold then anyone who thinks PR is a waste of time should throw in the towel.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:03 am (utc) on Apr 4, 2010]
[edit reason] removed specific [/edit]

[BillyS]

@TheMadScientist:

I read through the comments in that other thread. Seems to be a mixed opinion, but still a lot of weight given to PR when linking. That's too bad.

The theme I do see is that webmasters that are looking to EXCHANGE links are interested in the green. That makes sense because they're trying to increase PR and are less worried about visitor experience.

I don't respond to link EXCHANGE requests, but will gladly link to a site (regardless of PR green) that provides my visitors with a better experience.

I realize a lot of experts here think I'm a complete fool for taking this approach, but it works pretty well over the long haul. (I also don't ever have to worry about a SE penalty for link exchanges.) This approach is based on a mistake I made about seven years ago - never to be repeated again.

[drall]

Removed the toolbar a few days ago, very liberating:)

Once you realize that my graybar pages decimate your tbpr 4-6 pages for ranking then you will finally come to the same conclusion as The Mad Scientist, me and thousands of other webmasters and SEOs.

TBPR is total FUD!

[wheel]

dickbaker, there's long been a disconnect between pr and search engine traffic - the two aren't always connected. There's also been previous posts about how PR gets spread thinner as more sites go online. And that makes sense to me; I remember when a pr6 or 7 site in my industry was something. Now people ooh and ah like you've got something serious if you get a pr5 in my industry.

In other words, I wouldn't sweat it :).

[wheel]

Conversely, I have a site where Yahoo shows 37,000 backlinks and has a PR0. It's an ad network and the backlinks are all of the form 'advertise here' across a lot of high quality sites. Not sure what to make of that :).

[dickbaker]

Wheel, I sweat everything about my site. That's my nature.

Some of my competitors have PR5 sites. I outrank them on many terms and they outrank me on many other terms. Then, in the middle of those rankings are sites that just don't seem to warrant being on the first page.

Every time I think I understand, I realize I don't. It's worse than trying to understand women, and I've been try to do that for nearly 60 years.

[helpnow]

Google is 100% logical. It is just a computer program: it is all binary code, either the electrical swtich is turned on, or it is off. 1s and 0s.

Women!? They are 100% _illogical_. ; )

I can figure google out. But I will never be able to figure women out. ; ) And I live with 3 of them.

[TheMadScientist]

@BillyS That may be what they're talking about, but if PR influences the decision making process then even exchanging links is not natural because of it...

Also, it's really good to hear some others talking about not giving the TBFR any credit, so thanks for sharing.

Removed the toolbar a few days ago, very liberating:)

Been feeling the way you do for a year and a half, and the only time I even think about it is when the topic comes up here. I honestly don't even wonder what the PR of a page I'm working on, linking to or visiting is, but used to. It's not SiteRank... IMO no one has a PR 5 site, unless it's tiny.

* I'm not making the emphasis for you at all, but for readers who still are led to believe a PR 5 on the home page means you have a PR 5 site, because there's all different pages people could have higher PR on than the home page, but people are sooooo mislead and confused they think there's something wrong with the site they have to fix if that happens... Grrrrrrrr.

HUGE THANKS to all the FudFactory Employees who have totally skewed the way sites and the web are linked. You're GREAT!

Some of my competitors have PR5 sites

You mean they have PR 5 page(s) on their site, right?

And, you know the number is rounded, and they could have a 'barely rounds up to 5' on their home page and you could have a 'barely rounds down to 4' on your home page and if they place 25 links to different pages on their home page and you place only 15 links to different pages on your home page your 15 sub-level pages will probably receive a higher amount of PR from your 'barely rounds down to 4' home page than their 25 sub-level pages receive from their 'barely rounds up to 5' home page, right?

You also know you could have 'groups' of inner pages with higher PR than would be from 'cascaded down', because you get PR from inbound links? I've actually had people tell me it's bad to have inner pages with higher PR than my home page, even though those were the pages I wanted to rank for the terms, I'm guessing because they keep thinking of it in terms of 'site' which is not what it is.

I honestly had a 5 on some inner pages and a 4 on the home page (this was before I stopped looking at it or caring) so would you say I have a PR 5 site or not and who's site do you think would have more pages rank better? The one with the 5 on the home page or mine with the 5 on the sub-pages...

If you want a cure for your obsessing and just can't bring yourself to uninstall the FudRank from the toolbar, then all you have to do is remove enough links from your internal pages so more weight is passed back to the home page, rather than spread through your site, then you should be able to say you have a PR 5 site when they roll out another update. Just make sure you link predominantly to your home page from through out your site and 'sculpt' your PR there... You should be able to do it fairly easily IMO. What it would probably do to your rankings is another story, but you would probably feel better when looking at the tool bar.

[dickbaker]

True, TheMadScientist. Previously my home page was PR4, and the main interior pages were PR3. Now the home page is PR3, but the main interior pages and many subpages are PR3.

[TheMadScientist]

So as the web grows and PR is spread more thinly throughout pages because there are more pages, so none of them are 'as likely to be found randomly' (which is the short version of what PR is) your, most likely IMO, 'rounded up to 4' home page was 'rounded down to 3', quite possibly not for a lack of links, but from the spreading of PR over more pages...

So, IMO it is likely you had a 'barely rounds to 4' on your home page and a 'solidly rounds to 3' on your inner pages, and you lost a couple of links, or, as likely IMO, PR is now tougher to get, so your home page rounds down now rather than up, and you didn't really lose a full point, but rather, more likely IMO went from (this is an example) 3.500001 to 3.4999972, which means you have a 3 in the FudRank Display Meter, but didn't really lose anything significant, except your level of comfort.

It's why I say to not look.

Watch traffic and rankings instead and quit worrying about the FudRank you see, because IMO it's not nearly as important the FudRank you see for your home page now rounds down to 3 instead of up to 4 as it is your traffic and rankings are intact and steady...

You could actually have lost less overall, comparatively, than other pages that didn't round down before, and are now closer to rounding down. So, it's entirely possible your PR could be relatively increasing (compared to other pages in your niche), but you don't see it that way visibly.

There's really no telling, and PR within a niche matters way more than overall PR, and your relative REAL, INTERNAL PR (calculated more accurately and more often) compared to other 'similar pages' REAL, INTERNAL PR, on a page by page basis is what really matters more than the FudRank they show you for your home page in the ToolBar.

You could very well generate more traffic from your solid 3 (3.48205) inner pages than some other sites would if they spread their PR too thin and have a lower 3 (2.897641) on their inner pages. But, there's no way to tell how 'close to 3' your actual PR is or their '3' is on each individual page by looking at the FudRank displayed in the toolbar. It's completely worthless, except to tell you the rounded number of each page was 3 when the FudRank for display was calculated (it's technically only estimated!)... That's all it tells you and why I keep calling it FUD. It Is!

Their estimating system may have been edited and your REAL, INTERNAL PR may not have even changed relative to the other pages in your niche. The displaying of PR is done using a completely FUD based system, IMO, because it's not even what the REAL, INTERNAL PR was at some point in time... It's only a bleeping rounded estimate!

There's a full range (which is basically exponentially harder to move up through, and gets tougher as PR gets spread thinner) you could be in, and there's really no telling if your 3 is 'almost 4' on some pages while their 3 is 'just over 2' on some pages, by using the toolbar.

IOW: IMO If you just watch the rankings and traffic and you'll get a much more accurate idea if you're on the right track or if you need to do something different than you will if you put any stock in the FudRank you see displayed for your home page...

Does anyone else see why I say displaying this garbage is bad for the web and confuses people?
Because to me it seems absolutely obvious.

[steveb]

"IOW: IMO If you just watch the rankings and traffic and you'll get a much more accurate idea if you're on the right track or if you need to do something different than you will if you put any stock in the FudRank you see displayed for your home page..."


The world is not either/or. If a page isn't ranking where you expect, and you deliberately don't look at the toolbar, then you are self-destructively wasting your time.

[TheMadScientist]

Duplicated below...
Stinking weekend posters.

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 12:32 am (utc) on Apr 5, 2010]

[TheMadScientist]

If a page isn't ranking where you expect, and you deliberately don't look at the toolbar, then you are self-destructively wasting your time.

That's absolutely funny.

I'm self-destructively wasting my time by not looking at something that only tells me a 3 to 6 month out of date, rounded, estimated number to try and figure out why a page isn't ranking where it should... LMAO. That's totally funny.

I'll start looking at it real closely from now on, because it will definitely give me a clue as to why my page that ranked yesterday doesn't rank today, right?

It's only updated once every 3 months and even then it's estimated and prior to 'now' or 'today' by the time we see it... Come on, please...

##### # #####

Actually, in thinking about it you're right...
Absolutely!

I would not 'waste' anywhere near as much of my time working if I told clients and prospective clients they were going to have to wait for the next PageRank update for me to be able to see why their page isn't ranking where it should any more.

I can hear the conversation:
Prospective Client: "Hey our page dropped down in the rankings, can you help us out?"

Me: "Sure, wait until July and I'll know if your ToolBar PageRank dropped or not, then I'll know what to do. I would do something now, but it's really a waste of my time before PR is updated again because I need to know what it is and if it changed before I can help you out effectively and efficiently... BTW: It's $250 for the consultation... Your invoice is on the way."

LOL. Thanks for the laugh steveb.


##### # #####

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.

...

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank.

[google.com...]

Isn't deciding where to link based on the TBFR of a page doing at least one of the preceding?
Isn't the easiest way to eliminate it to remove TBFR from displaying?

People don't link where they normally would because if the page does not meet their 'threshold' for PageRank they don't link to it, which seems to be a 'trick' to improve their search engine rankings...

Isn't it? If there's not another reason to not link to a page, except the PR why wouldn't people link to it, except as an attempt to improve their search engine rankings?

IMO if Google really cared about which pages were the most important they would not tell us which pages are most important, the same as your boss would not tell you the answer or what they thought before you answered if they wanted your true opinion without 'brown nosing' being a possibility...

IMO the reality is Google is more set on the data they get from the TBFR display than anything else, because, again IMO, if they were really concerned with the pages we, the Webmasters, SEOs, Site Builders thought were the most important they wouldn't show us anything to determine which pages they perceive as the most important except the rankings and they would let the linking on the web happen completely naturally without the any influence based on their perceived importance of a page being able to be a factor in the decision we all have to make on whether to link to a specific page or not.

IMO they're definitely smart enough to have thought of all the arguments I can make against it, and have no issue with impacting the way the web is linked, even to the detriment of being able to rank the most important content first, because they're really more concerned with the data they gain from the ToolBar with FR visible than keeping the web linked naturally and without their influence.

IOW: IMO, you can only see the TBFR because they want the information they get from you based on the 'extra agreement', not because they think showing it is a benefit to you or the web itself. It's all about the data collection...