Deleted the Toolbar off my system.

I've done it

[caine]

Its took me a long time to be able to do this, even though the updates of the G every month, have become more academic than mystical for me, i still liked to view the PR on high SERP rankings, to figure out why.

I ain't got anything now, but no longer is google going to be tracking me, via the Toolbar. Though no doubt my ip's are well and truely listed.

I just feel good, about dropping the bar.

[digitalghost]

I dropped the toolbar quite awhile ago, although I still install it and uninstall it on occasion and usually only when a client requests a PR value.

Simply isn't a good idea for an SEO to be bouncing around from client site to client site with the phone home feature enabled. I've also found that too many people rely on that toolbar to determine the quality of a site, and that's just bad all the way around.

[Macguru]

Ouch!

Sounds pretty drastic. I still prefer to prolong my addiction throught a couple of dialup accounts.

[caine]

DH,

I agree, it don't really mean alot if you've got your linking strategy sorted out, theme's in place, and the site isn't going to pick up penalties, then the PR is a gimmick and nothing more.

<edit>A very incestious marketing ploy, that does work for J.Bloggs to SEO's</edit>

[rcjordan]

>just feel good

Heh! Now don't go emailing your friends asking them to check PR for you -that's cheating.

[caine]

RC,

thats the dodgy gut thing going on there. I feel like i gained more freedom, but giving away a part of my being.

What did people do, before the toolbar to check all the backlinking, similars and of course PR.

one step back and hopefully two forward.

[percentages]

I'm keeping the toolbar.....I check way more competitors than my own sites. If Google wants to install a penalty for toolbar usage, bring it on. They will end up penalizing my comps.......

[rcjordan]

>I check way more competitors than my own sites

No reason to suspect any SE toolbar of doing this, but just to fuel the paranoids among us:

But how many of your competitors' sites do you ftp into?

[JonB]

But how many of your competitors' sites do you ftp into?
-----

how can toolbar check if i ftp to my site with leechftp?also there a lot of free ftp's we log as anonymous to get tje file.if toolbar can cathc this then i am uninstaling it!

added: i jsut saw small words that this is just speculation:)

[Brad]

caine, I think you are on to something. I think too many webmasters spend far too much time adapting ourselves to that little PR indicator on the toolbar. The Google search form is handy to have but other toolbars, or - better - other browsers also have that search form.

I think I will uninstall mine too, next time I boot up that computer.

[GoogleGuy]

I agree that most people pay too much attention to the PageRank display, but you can also just disable the Advanced Features and then the toolbar won't send any information to Google unless you request it via a query.

[caine]

GG,

without spilling the beans completely, exactly what information is the toolbar providing?

not to worry - i still feel like i have ripped of an arm. feel blind. bizarre feeling.

[Brad]

To be fair, I do not think Google ever intended for webmasters to be obsessed with that indicator. (SEO's might be a different question.)

Anyway, I would always recommend having a search form on the browser which includes Google, but I think limiting oneself to only one engine is still not good. Without the PR indicator one might be happier with something like this: [webmasterworld.com...]

Also, Marcia's recent nightmare experience with hijacking scumware highlights a more general IE toolbar danger not only limited just to Google.
[webmasterworld.com...]

But whatever you use, giving up that PR indicator is probably a good idea.

[edit_g]

I don't see whats wrong with the toolbar. I don't think Google are using my surfing habits to penalise my sites or anything else that will affect me personally. If they don't have better things to do (and I know that they do) then I'm really worried about the state of their company...

The PR indicator- as Googleguy says- you can turn it off. Also- we're all adults here- we should be able to give the PR indicator the credit which it is due and learn when to ignore it...

[MJR]

The toolbar has proved itself to be irrelevant. PR1 sites out ranking PR7 sites on Google's SERP's - yikes. If there were more of a correlation between the two then the little green monster would be useful (to me). However from Google's standpoint they certainly accomplished a lot of "discussion" and it certainly has seen many a webmaster making sacrificial offerings at the stroke of midnight every 30 days to the Google God :)

[Rick_M]

What about when you get a request to link to a site that looks appropriate but you find out it has a PR0? I would think you'd want to know about that, wouldn't you?

[MJR]

What about when you get a request to link to a site that looks appropriate but you find out it has a PR0? I would think you'd want to know about that, wouldn't you?

I think I would want to know their ranking on SERP's. After all are you looking for the green bar aproval or traffic? :)

[Robski]

A link is a link you shouldn't be concerned what pr value the site has. Today it might have a zero and in a month it might have a 4. Every site has to start somewhere! You should just be happy that you got a link back and another source of visitors.

[steveb]

It takes two seconds to either turn off the phone home aspect of the toolbar or hide it. It may take two years to recover from linking to multiple penalized PR0 sites. Deleting the toolbar is playing the game in the dark, and that can be dangerous to you.

[tedster]

On larger sites that I manage, I find the toolbar very helpful. With it I can ensure that I pass enough PR to newer pages -- of course, waiting for a new dance to be sure the PR is 'real'.

But I solve most of my "phone home" worries by using Opera or Phoenix for regular browsing. I only haul out IE for special occasions, such as PR checking.

One of our clients just picked up a trojan/virus/parasiteware thingie by browsing with a recently patched IE. Although it was more of a nuisance than a destructive presence, it still took an afternoon to clean their machines properly.

And one more time I was glad that I don't browse with IE - and those regular PR reports will not convince me to do so.

[kevinpate]

Is there any downside to installing the tool bar to look around at PR, and then removing it again, until you decide it's time you want to take another look see?

Sure hope not. I don't want to get in a mind set where PR knowledge becomes addictive, but I do want to have at least the occasional clue about it from time to time.

[digitalghost]

No downside at all. :)

[vitaplease]

I'm going to get a second desktop pretty soon anyway.

One will run my general work and show WebmasterWorld on broadband, the other will be dial-up toolbar.

But then, if Google really wanted to, they could have detected my habits long ago.

[Dave2]

I use Mozilla for browsing, and IE for checking PR.
Works for me :).

[rfgdxm1]

>GG,

>without spilling the beans completely, exactly what information is the toolbar providing?

Necessarily, Google will need to know what your IP is, and exactly what pages you are surfing to. Unless the toolbar is spyware and Google is lying about what it does on their privacy page, Google will know no more about you then any website you surf to.

[john316]

* Google only collects the normal type of information that is already available to the websites you visit.

I wonder if that includes form data? Name, rank, serial number kind of stuff?

The privacy policy that is posted is probably about as vague as they come.

[toolbar.google.com...]

I hope reality doesn't resemble these guys:

Alexa Privacy [pages.alexa.com]

At least there is *full* disclosure (I think).