It’s Official, Google’s PageRank is “Dead”!
Man, those last 2 blog posts on the FTC stuff generated interest; comments and e-mail galore. But that’s over, been there, done that.
You’ve probably heard of Google’s PageRank; well duh!
In my opinion, it hasn’t been important for a long time — I’ve found it distracting at best but now it’s mostly so 2005 – but many people swear by it and make one of their main goals to get a high PageRank.
I lost faith in it when I kept seeing pages with low PageRank on the first page of Google.
I mean who cares what your PageRank is if you aren’t ranking high on the search results for your keywords.
For some reason though, PageRank continues to be associated with high rankings and I just didn’t see it but if people wanted to waste their time achieving it that just made it easier for me to get a high ranking (which I do care about).
Well, that’s all over with.
It finally seems “official” as Google has, without fanfare (that tells you what they’ve thought of it), removed PageRank from its Webmaster Tools. Is this the first step into Google deep sixing it?
A spokesperson, Susan Moskwa, said this, “We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.”
Need more proof, pop over to this Google FAQ page (http://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq–crawling–indexing—ranking#pagerank) and see that it says you shouldn’t even bother thinking about it. It also says that PageRank is “just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed, and ranked.”
I liked their subtle “dig” about using Google Analytics which can be insanely useful and everyone should be tracking (and, ultimately, split testing).
Weirdly, it does remain on the Google toolbar. I don’t know if that is politics or a big company just needing time to become consistent but who cares (okay, yeah, it can give you a little interesting information but don’t obsess).
If you’ve been focusing on PageRank, it’s past time you focus on search engine results positioning (SERP).
That’s all I’ve got to say about that…
What’s your reaction?
Leave a comment below.
That’s it, short and sweet today.
Talk soon,
The “Shameless” (but “Ethical”) Marketer
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That is all well and good, and I agree with you and google that people shouldn’t concentrate on their sites PR
BUT!!
If they have not removed it totally from their toolbar and or other places on the site it must still be used.
If it is not important then why are people all over SEO forums selling services providing links from PR5+ websites? Why have people created link wheels with high PR sites if PR is not important. It HAS to be one of the more than 120 aspects of googles algorythm…
Jason
David, thanks for sharing your thoughts on PR. I’m in total agreement and have been for quite some time now. I’ve seen far too many low PR pages knocking out higher PR sites lately to seriously listen to any advice telling me not to try to compete with PR 4 pages and higher.
Jason,
This is my opinion of course, but PR used to be of much greater importance some years ago but Google has been making it less and less important over time.
They have said a few times in the last couple of years that PR wasn’t as big of a deal and now they have taken a big step in saying “hey, it really isn’t important so if you didn’t believe me before believe me now!”
My thoughts on why it is on the toolbar is that it’s probably one of two things, politics (either some Google execs like it for some reason or there is pressure from SEO people to leave it on) or the development team on the toolbar hasn’t implemented it yet in a release of the toolbar (that isn’t a rare occurrence that different development teams release on different schedules and have different priorities even if there is overlap).
Why do the SEO people push it. Hey, they’re marketers and it is something easy to show and it has some history.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time marketing types (yes, that’s us) have pushed products that were of, shall we say, marginal value to make a buck.
Personally, I prefer to be ahead of the curve and Google keeps saying it is not important so I haven’t cared for a while.
David
P.S. I think Google said it is only 1 of 200 aspects of their algorithm (not 1 in 120). Of course, they aren’t all equally weighted but from my experience and from what Google says, PageRank doesn’t seem to carry much weight.
Art,
I’m with you on that
The “ethical” part of me says I wish people would stop trying to push junk although there is another part saying that everyone who follows what they say is a weaker competitor!
Fortunately for my conscious and mental health the ethical side wins but that other side is there I must admit.
David
Agreed David. I’ve been hearing from reliable sources for over a year now that focusing on PR is a waste of time. However, that doesn’t mean we should stop doing the things that we USED do to do to try to get that PR up there.
The single most effective SEO activity you can do is generate backlinks with well chosen anchor text. PR relied heavily on the amount of quality backlinks pointing to your site…and that seems to STILL remain the most effective thing you can do to get your site ranked.
Forget page rank…concentrate on quality backlinks with strategic anchor text.
Jason,
Yep, I agree with that.
Back links is SOOOOO important, although quality is more important than quantity (as you intimate), but it is a coincidental side effect that back links improve PageRank.
So, as you say “Forget page rank…concentrate on quality backlinks with strategic anchor text.”
David
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7IPbnmvVU (Google Video)
“As I have said before, these videos and other tips Google frequently gives out are worth paying attention to for any webmaster looking to rank well. Whether they’re talking about duplicate content, meta tags, or paid links, they’re all aimed at telling webmasters how it is, and clarifying any misconceptions to the contrary. Whether you agree with Google’s methods in all cases or not, the tips are for your benefit.
Like it or not, Google controls what people find on the web when they search. The company’s huge market share is just something that is. There is always the possibility that could change in the future, but at this point, it looks like webmasters are not going to be able to ignore Google for a long time, if they hope to be found on the web by searchers. ”
This is a part of an article from Webpronews.com by Chris Crum
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Absolutely agree man, my website is completely anchored at #1 on page 1 of Google when someone is searching for terms that relate to it… yet hangs at a PR of 2 or 3, and I could care less. PR is fluff… useless fluff. I get found and that’s all that matters to me.