I know, I know. It’s easy for me to say “duh” because I’m not affected by this drastic change in Google PageRanks that’s happening now across the web. My sites, after all, have always had PageRanks of 4 (but so are the rest of you now! Bwahaha! Kidding.) Admittedly, it had been a little disappointing at first — considering all the link building I’ve done for these sites, I reckon I should have at least moved a step up in that PageRank ladder already. Heh.
But it’s not like I’m having sleepless nights over it. I stopped caring about PageRanks long ago, after all, I’ve seen websites with PRs as little as 2 and 3, ranking in the SERPs along with sites that have greater PageRanks. I just don’t think that PageRank is still a valid measure of a site’s relevance anymore, is all.
Andy Beard made an inventory of sites/blogs that were affected by the update downgrade. And so did Barry Schwarts at Search Engine Land. It would be interesting to find out if the traffic of these sites were really affected by this whole PR update thing. I think not.
Hence, I make an anti-thesis to Jayvee’s “Blog Networks should NOT rely on Text Link Ads or Google AdSense” idea. (Hi, Jayvs! Hehe.) Yes, Google is not a big fan of selling and buying links, we all know that already. Then again, it has been pointed out several times that a lot of those blogs that were affected are not involved with selling (or buying) links. I don’t think this has got anything to do with Google Adsense, either. Perhaps, the theory should be something in the line of “stop relying on Google PageRanks, people.” Google must have been fed up already by sites that are relying too much on its PR technology to market their own businesses.
Didn’t Aaron Wall state long before this controversial PR update that “PageRank is the wonkiest stat of them all“? Prior to this, we all know that Google updates PageRanks every after three months (longer sometimes), hence, the PageRanks we’ve all been seeing are, in a sense, outdated. Also, PageRanks vary across data centers, and across Google toolbars even. And again, I’ve seen a lot of sites that do not have PR5s or PR6s ranking for competitive keywords all the time.
My thesis: Websites should NOT rely on Google PageRanks.
Blog Networks should no longer use PageRanks as their “bait” or marketing pitch to advertisers. Text Links Ads or Blog to Profit shouldn’t make it their standard for approving sign-ups, either. Point is, there are far better and more reliable ways to measure a site’s relevance, like, traffic for example. Or content. Or backlinks. PageRank is soooo 2005.
Good for me, while blogging this I found myself at Search Engine Journal (whose PR, by the way, dropped from 7 to 4). So hey, I’d stop ranting now so I can direct you over to Loren Baker’s take on this. Take it over, Mr. Baker. I agree with everything you say.
So should the rest of us.
Jeric says:
I agree on this! These paid-to-blog sites should look for other ways to measure the relevance of a website.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
A Bugged Life [ philippine technology. the communications industry and geek rants ] » Blog Archive » Google PR is just a number and this is my miracle explanation why says:
[...] Putting things in perspective, I believe the issue about the Google PR numbers game is at most, a relative discourse. Yuga says that bloggers should not rely on Google PageRank and Riz exposes the idea that PageRank is a wonky statistic. [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
jayvee f. says:
i have an updated post about this issue actually
http://abuggedlife.com/2007/10/26/google-pr-is-just-a-number-and-this-is-my-miracle-explanation-why/
October 25th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Joni says:
Yep, I think Google got fed up with that. I was even surprised that they still thought of updating pageranks. hehe. Nice post, Riz!
October 26th, 2007 at 6:59 am
Junelle says:
WOW http://guitarchic.net/ has a PR increase … PR 5 now … CONGRATS
October 28th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Dennison Uy - Graphic Designer says:
Riz pagerank does have a significant impact on a site’s SERP. The day my site dropped in PR I lost a huge amount of traffic and no wonder, I dropped out of the front page for my top keywords and I had to dig really really really deep to find my website. But I do also agree that sites with lower PRs can appear ahead or beside sites with higher ones. It all just breaks down to content and popularity.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:29 am
markku says:
I think the apt statement should be:
“Websites should not rely on PageRank, but on real traffic.”
After all, what we liked about PR was the traffic, not necessarily the number. =)
November 8th, 2007 at 8:51 am