Dude, where’s my PageRank?
This morning, around 1 am, I was finishing up a document and clicked over to Search Engine Journal to see if any comments were made on some of my favorite posts. Looking at the Google Toolbar, I saw the PageRank bar read a PageRank 6. After refreshing a couple of times and rubbing the sand out of my eyes, low and behold, after 3 or 4 years at PageRank 7, we dropped.
I can’t say I was too surprised. Search Engine Journal was not the only site I noticed a drop in PageRank on last night, I noticed many other blogs and forums I read experiencing a drop. And recent Google activity has pointed to a new regrouping of PageRank, which may be addressing the size and growth of the Internet since Larry PageRank was first published, or may be addressing the growth of paid linking.
So, I made some changes to my template to eliminate the 3 links under Supporters, added a button from AdAge and thought about new changes I could make to the site, some which have nothing to do with links, Google or PageRank.
The drop in PageRank did not keep me up last night as I drifted off into dreamland with thoughts of the next few weeks in my mind.
This morning however, I noticed that search marketing blogs were not alone. Actually, we’re in rather good company. Here is a list of some of the major sites ‘hit’ by the PageRank update yesterday:
Like I said, rather good company. Newspaper and blog networks which use a lot of intralinking, seem to have been hit hard; b5media, Weblogs, Inc. and Gawker.
One could say that paid linking led to the decrease in PageRank for these sites, but not all of these sites use paid linking as a source of revenue.
Furthermore, there are many sites which were not associated with this drop in PageRank which sell paid links, but I’m not going to out them.
So, why the decrease? As I wait to hear back from Google on the decrease, there are many reasons which Google may be changing PageRank.
- Paid Linking : The easy excuse is that they’re targeting paid links, but not all sites which experienced the drop sell or buy links.
- Mass Linking : Do we link out to too many sites via Blog Rolls? Does Linkbait just result in TOO MANY links, even if they are natural. Do blog networks use influential linking to their advantage? I think PageRank has been spread too thin and Google is changing its PageRank formula to address the mass publishing which has taken place over the past 2 years.
- Devalue PageRank : PageRank is seen by many as the end all value of a web site. Our PageRank dropped but we are receiving more Google search traffic than ever. PageRank does not define site rankings in Google or traffic and it should not be mistaken as so.
- Kill the Paid Link Market : If Paid Linking houses use PageRank as a pricing metric, then eliminating or devaluing PageRank will devalue paid linking
We’ll have some more news on the changes in PageRank, or the Great Google Halloween Update, but until Matt Cutts addresses this on his blog or Google… please sound off in the comments below:
- Why do you think Google has changed the PageRank on so many sites?
- Was your site hit? If so, why do you think so?
- What sites have you noticed that experienced a drop in PageRank?
blogging is best for page rank and its free , so why pay for links>
There has recently been much fanfare about the Adobe assisted google effort to improve searchability of Flash SWF file content on the web. If the enormous body of previously ‘hidden’ RIA content is now starting to be indexed en masse, then surely that must relatively displace rank of other existing content?
Google should make a new ranking system because the one in use right now is horrible.
I have no paid links, no bad neighbors, have good content and I get my rank taken away. I agree with FinestRech Google needs a new ranking system.
I also experienced PR dropping. My site had PR3 and this morning is PR2. No paid links, my fair play but Google puts me down … I guess we will never now why. Anyway, if traffic stays the same, I will not worry.
It could be said that paid links lead to the shrinking in PageRank, but not all of these sites use paid linking as a source of revenue. Its not always how’s it’s done.
Is inbound link helpful for Google PR.
I’m staying away from paying for links because every forum I’ve come across state this is a bad idea and Google will knock a site down in the rankings.
What I can’t work out is how Google can find out if a link has been paid for?
Can anyone out there say for certain if Google can find out if a site has paid links?
I can find no reason that my site htttp://www.ipresort.com should have dropped in ranking. Still trying to figure it out.
Google should make a new ranking system, our site dropped to 3, from 4) still i’am trying to get more visitors of google, isn’t true that PR isn’t connected with visitors from Goo.
Hello Guys,
What I can’t work out is how Google can find out if a link has been paid for?
I know the reason: Google has a very powerful algorithm, Google has targeted some bad keywords for PR like: Featured Link, Paid Link etc.
If the website have all these keywords and your link will be there then Google Algorithm understand that your website have paid links.
Any Query you can reply
Mohd Amir
SEO Expert
INDIA, LKO
so sad.. i just came across to your blog! and all i can say all of your posts are cool
I’ve noticed this in the past as well, my site seems to have taken a hit in PageRank, be interesting to see how Google can ‘tell’ what paid is.
promoting the pagerank is necessary.
There is always a Google dance every now and then. The PR of my site dropped to 1 in April and has since bounced back to 4… and i don’t offer paid links on my site.
Cheow
One of my sites dropped from 4 to 3 to 0. Zero. I have no idea why, and I wouldn’t care except that it’s the only site I’ve ever had that made me any money. If it didn’t have a loyal following, I would be in trouble. Google has a lot of power.
Anyone have any idea on why a new web site with no links to it that I can find at all has a page rank of 2 ?
We have a foreign language learning software web site here. It’s new but has some Yahoo links, lots of good content and has a page rank of 2. No surprises. It’s located here:
http://language101.com
We decided to set up a development site to move the content management stuff to a different content management system.
It’s brand new (as far as I know) and is located here:
http://language101.net
This has a page rank of 2 as of August 9 2009 . Is there a page rank fairy out there that has blessed this site with a page rank of 2?
Anyone know how to get more of this pixie dust? Perhaps there is a link to this somewhere. If someone would tell us how to find it (Google and Yahoo both show nothing) I would appreciate it.
Perhaps this would be a good subject for a main new post?
I just saw not only my PR drop, but my results gone. Funny thing is my Alexa rankings went up (down based on their ranking). Weird. I think their ranking system is in need if an overhaul.
When I first launched my wordpress blog it had a pagerank 3 for about 2 weeks. Is this normal? I wish I wasn’t a slave to the stats :}
It happened to me too. My site was on the first Google page and dropped to 2nd and for some keywords to the 3rd page. Sad but true.
I am just as confused as everyone else. I’ve never had good rankings on Google, and do need to acquire more natural links, but for the one good keyword I had (on page one) for about 1 week, it has now disappeared. It may be on page 10 or so, but at that point, I guess it makes little difference.
My site had a pagerank 4 then 3 and this latest google show dropped it to 0 !!!
It stayed the same in search rankings, even got a place or two up for some keywords.
I see no reason for this drop, nothing is changed on my side…
My Google Rank has suddenly dropped from 3 to 1 !
I have recently submitted my URL to a company that submits URLs automatically to several search engines for a small fee. Since then my Google Rank has dropped significantly from 3 to 1.
Have I done a mistake by submitting my URL to unknown search engines? If so, how can I undo these mistakes?
Wow, I have a good company: you site! My blog was a PR 5 now it’s 3.
I don’t know when it’s back. The thing is the traffic does decrease after the google PR drop. It’s good if PR value ain’t affect your traffic
Hi,
RE: Page drop or Page Rank..?
We were hit by the google drop, now i’m not sure what is meant by page rank, what i can’t undestand is our site appeared on page one of google under some search terms, and the page rank for the site is 3, However after this google issue, the page rank is still 3 but the site now appears on page 5 when we search with the same search terms as before, is this a page rank drop if so what to ..?
Hmm, it’d be nice to have some pagerank in the first place! It now seems to take longer than before, in this case 5 months and counting. So at least we don’t have to worry about dropping pagerank!
Come on dude, these facts* and proof* i mean who is posting* lol :P
It would make sense for google to adjust its Page Rank algorithms to reflect the increasing number in blog roll links.
Swaping links is a bad idea full stop, organic links is the best link exchange,
Google knows people only swap links for one reason, and that’s page rank,
so if you find your site has dropped in google check your link exchange if you got one, Remove or disable it, send an email to google, and you should be back up again in no time.
My site had pr 1 and I decided to increase it through some work so I started it before a month but I see that It’s 0 now. I just don’t understand what to do.
I don’t really think Google knows what it’s doing some of the time; it’s created this mythical creature a creature called page rank. This creature has now mutated with an outbreak into the general public giving them false hope of unlimited security whey they stumble upon a site with good page rank!
It s also seems to have many a people stumbling in the dark for a cure! A cure to a problem they can administer themselves.
If you have good content, i.e. products if you are a shop, with good product description and not just what everyone else has duplicated on their site, have more relevant content if you are a directory based site you should be ok. Content, Content, Content that’s all I’ve ever used my site has gone from a 5 to a 4 then a 3 and now after their new tweak a 2 yet we have only ever climbed the natural listings, to being mostly the top of page 1 for with most of our relevant keywords.
Lets not forget there are many companies out there making a living promising to get you to the top of goggles search engine and I have found only one who can deliver! And it’s a paid link! It’s called Google AdWords funny how Google frown on paid links! I bet they do it’s their money you are giving to someone else.
What’s a good link and what’s a bad link? If a customer want to tell everyone how good you are because you have done a good job do you refuse their link? Do you also refuse to put a link back just because it’s not relevant?
I know they are promoted as the biggest and the best but answer yourself one question do you now look at page rank as everything that’s important? …….No and neither will everyone else in time!
My pagerank dropped from 2 to 1 recently. This was after I had started setting up some backlinks. I haven’t been able to confirm whether these are connected, but what it communicated to me is that I should go about getting backlinks and pagerank the hard way – by good and honest work. I won’t spend more time with backlink packages I think.
Anyway, thanks for confirming that this is a general development on the web and not just me! (my traffic has gone up too)
Eivind,
Masculinity Movies
Sorry, I tried to leave a post the other day, but i don’t think it got published. I too have noticed a drop in my ranking on Google. I’ve never had any real good rankings with them to begin with. However, I was on page one for a specific keyword, and now one week later, I am nowhere to be found. I looked as far as 20 pages, and still no sign. This seems very discouraging.
Everybody has problem loosing PR. How to recover it? After one month of SEO got rank and loosing it without reason specification is so depressing. How to get back my page rank?
I think Google has just changed the maths a little so it’s harder to get a PR5 and above. I don’t think it affects the rankings much of the site that has dropped, maybe just the sites it links to.
It would be interesting to see what would happen to the industry if Google got rid of PageRank all together, or made it secret.
I am in the same boat as many of the bloggers who have commented. At least now I know I’m not alone. I have honestly quit worrying about page rank. I just like to make sure I’m still on the first page of google for the search terms I have targeted. So far I still am. So I’m content. I just keep focusing on content.
This was hard for me to digest. The PR of my blogs dropped down but i do agree on one point where i can see the improvement in the traffic. It was good to see PR 4 rather than PR2. :(
Yes! In fact, that’s why I’m here, I was googling this very question. My two month old blog which normally has a page rank of 3, just dropped to 0 today! I’m trying so hard to work out if I’ve done anything ‘bad’, so to speak, but reading this makes me realise there might be more to it than that. I hope!
The PR for our website dropped substantially too, and I have no idea why either. We don’t use paid links, or provide links for money – but even if that did affect rankings – does that mean that all I need to do is set up a couple of bogus sites with “Paid Link, buy link, link for money, etc etc” as keywords across all the pages and then link to competitors pages from that?
If that’s the case, then in theory, I should able to poison the rankings of huge amounts of websites through one simple exercise. I’m hoping someone has better insights into this than me!