Page Rank Update - April 2010

[xuberantguy]

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

[steveb]

"because it will definitely give me a clue as to why my page that ranked yesterday doesn't rank today, right?"

Um, yeah. If you don't know why, that's a pity.

You've spent more time in this thread talking about not using the toolbar than it takes to get thousands of data points from the toolbar during the course of the year. Denying yourself a glance at the flawed data just doesn't make sense. The toolbar is not some miracle of science, but it saves a lot of time and is very helpful if you know how to appreciate its values and flaws. That won't convince you, but just maybe there are better things then to focus your attention on.

[TheMadScientist]

Um, yeah. If you don't know why, that's a pity.

And if you can't optimize a page or figure out why it's not ranking without looking at the PR, then IMO that's a pity too...

Thanks for the concern about my time, but maybe this is an educational thread and I'm sharing an opinion many people don't get to read very often, and I'm sure you think yours is much more valuable and correct for people, but you're probably not one of the ones the entire system confuses and misleads, so my posts really aren't for you in the least, but may open some eyes and even if people don't uninstall it, they may realize it's possible to optimize without seeing the FudBar all the time or get the idea the data is inaccurate and they should not really worry about it as much as many do.

Can you imagine what would happen to all the 'great optimizers' who rely on published PR data as part of their methodology if PR ever ceased to be displayed to the public? They'd have to rethink everything they did, wouldn't they?

For some reason I uninstalled the toolbar for good not too long after the thread Adam Lasnik was involved in and there was serious talk about removing the public display of PR... (I may have even been actively involved in the discussion (different user name), and I think you were involved in the discussion too.)

Proposed: Google Should Stop Displaying Toolbar PR [webmasterworld.com]

I guess you've changed your opinion since then...
These are steveb quotes from Page 7 Post 3 & 5 at 20 posts per page: (Emphasis Mine)

But don't make it worse with this nanny stuff. We run businesses where accurate data is useful. Please stop pretending feeding us nonsense data is good for us.

...

If Google spent more time fixing their buggy, mediocre, disappointing search engine, it wouldn't matter about backlink or PR data. They don't NEED to show us that, and we don't need to have it.

...

3) Stop catering to spammers and cater to genuine businesses instead. Providing those sickening reinclusion requests for spammers but not non-spammers is just the most obvious. (This is also the area concerning the dishomest backlink and PR data... this does not effect knowledgable webmasters but it is a sadistic act towards non-professional webmasters who don't know they are being lied to.)

Maybe I'm confused and you're talking about something totally different, but I remember the thread fairly well, and I think we were discussing the removal of the display of PR at the time, and I think that's what these quotes are in direct reference to, and I thought we were in agreement, but again, I could be mistaken about the preceding quotes...

[steveb]

"And if you can't optimize a page or figure out why it's not ranking without looking at the PR, then IMO that's a pity too..."

More the pity. There are other websites in the world too y'know. Or do you optimize your competitors sites too?

Uncle Harold may not be 100% reliable, but as long as I know that, he can be useful, and he is certainly more useful alive than buried in the sand.

[TheMadScientist]

Or do you optimize your competitors sites too?

I routinely try to give them advice, insight and ideas if they are readers here, and if not then it's too bad they're not part of a great community. It's been a fun thread and I've tried to give people some different ideas and thoughts they probably don't normally hear.

Anyway, to those who have been following: It's possible to optimize a site without using the toolbar or PageRank and don't let the number or lack thereof on any given page make you think it can't rank well, because I remember reading PageRank is Over-Hyped [webmasterworld.com] somewhere...

[tedster]

I'd say that PageRank updates are over-hyped. But these quarterly threads do provide an opportunity to dispel some mythology and help webmasters get a better orientation to what the toolbar does and doesn't mean.

By the way, I find it fascinating that my C drive now has a PR 8 (true!) I hope that doesn't mean it's going to start ranking for anything soon ;)

[helpnow]

my C drive now has a PR 8 (true!)

OK, this has got to be the FUNNIEST thing I heard this Easter weekend! Thank you, tedster! If THAT doesn't dispel the importance of the PR toolbar, well hell, I don't know what will.

[TheMadScientist]

By the way, I find it fascinating that my C drive now has a PR 8 (true!) I hope that doesn't mean it's going to start ranking for anything soon ;)

I wouldn't worry too much about it ranking, but you might want to ask Brett to take the footer links to it down soon... I've been surfing it all day.

[caribguy]

my C drive now has a PR 8 (true!)

WebmasterWorld should have a section dedicated to surreal stuff like this (maybe pinned to foo?). I've been laughing for the past 10 minutes. Way to go!

[TheMadScientist]

Tedster, also, I'm starting to rethink my position on the importance of ToolBar PageRank and forgot to ask:
How much do you charge for a one way link?

[walkman]

Guys, from what I can tell:
Normally, high PR sites got the PR due to many links which in turn increase your serps. Of course not always

[TheMadScientist]

I was done with this thread until I read tedsters post, and I really thought it was funny so I decided to post again, then along comes walkman...

@ walkman:
That's thinkin' right there buddy.
I'm gona study on it for a minute, 'cause I think you might really be on to sumthin...

[tedster]

The amazing thing is that even HTML documents on my C drive that I just built this evening already have a Toolbar PR-8.

Yes, walkman, if you're talking about REAL PageRank, then that is about the right way to look at it. But as my C drive shows, you can't really trust the toolbar values too far. You probably need to sneak into the Googleplex to see a page's true PR.

Real PR is one ranking factor. It is a measure of backlinks, and no one questions that we need backlinks to rank. It's just that there are quite a few other factors involved, and that's why "Of course not always" brings a smile to my face.

[walkman]

Tedster,
My guess: the toolbar pagerank is simply based on math. Suppose I sell shoes and have 0 pr on my new page. But I get a link from Nasa homepage that has only 12 outgoing links. Let's assume that based on the math I should get a PR9 and I do on the next update. Now you also sell shoes but instead of getting a link from NASA and PR9 you have 54 links from blogs that talk about shoes. You have a measly PR2 because all your links are from single pages, but you have 54 links and I got one. If my site is so good, why do I only have one backlink? What's Google to do?

These are two extremes, but in most cases sites have high PR because they get thousands upon thousands of links and most are legit in google's eyes. So they get the high PR and the rankings to go with it because the links are trusted. As we know Google discounts backlinks and also completely zeros out the PR when they smell manipulation so there are a lot of adjustments made.

[Marvin Hlavac]

my C drive now has a PR 8

Content is king. You've got some great content on your C drive. People link to it naturally. :)

Google shows 50,600,000 links when I do: link:file:///C:/

:)

[ichthyous]

Google toolbar has suddenly stopped reporting rank for every page on my site and says "Current page is not ranked by google"...it's totally grey-barred! Never seen that before and I am getting PR info for every other site I am visiting. Is this normal during a PR update or does this look like a penalty of some sort?

Webmaster tools reports no new messages or issues. Nothing has changed on my site except that they recently recompiled apache on my server so I could use gzip compression to speed up page load, which was recommended by google itself in WMT. I've also gotten some good new IBLs from high PR pages.

--->Update: in the last few minutes toolbar is starting to report PR for some of my pages...must be updating page by page.

[Pass the Dutchie]

Pages with noindex/nofollow on our sites now have PR!

[bleached]

@ ichthyous

Got the same on my site which has been online for 8 years and also have no WMT messages (and no ban as far as I can see). The only page showing PR is the homepage out of more than 300+ pages. Hopefully they will come back little by little. Any more of your pages been updated yet? Anyone else experiencing the same?

[tedster]

Pages with noindex/nofollow on our sites now have PR!

That has always been possible, because PR is calculated from links that point to a URL. It does not depend on the page's content.