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?
I guess PR5 is the new PR 6.
To get PR6 is nearly impossible for us mere mortals.
Yes it’s getting real hard to get my rank up on these sites http://www.skylanterns2u.com
http://skylanterns2u.com.
I have a website it lost page rank from 3 to 1, can any body give me as little idea as possible to make me clear of the thing i am missing.
Thank u
Still going down. at http://www.dees-fancydress.co.uk we need to start sellingmore of our fancy dress costumes
My PR is again up, first it was 3 , then dropped to 1 and now again it has gone to 3.
http://www.flowersentiments.com
I went from 4 to 0. I then asked Google to reconsider via the webmaster tools console. Within 24 hours it was back to 3. I suspect they thought I was selling links.
We have spent alot of money on seo, move up on tankings then drop down again with in a few weeks. i have given up.
This is due to alot of companies having paid links.
just made a note of some of the info here! thanks!
http://www.mitchseego.com
oh really? it did? awful.
If you look like you’re selling links, even if you are not, then Google will slap your page.
I think they are being far too aggressive.
Why do Yahoo Directory link get valued so high.
These are all paid links
I want PR3 for it
http://www.chist.com
I am not expert in SEO but researching on SEO and page rank from couple of months and today I got my first page rank for my site http://www.article-live.com/
Even I feel google penalises sites which uses paid links. I am no sure how google’s formula works and keeps a track of paid links.
However, my webiste does not use any paid links..
Thanks for above informative posting.
Balakrishna
Google is playing very intelligent and is extra careful when handling PR.
I just wish i could also understand actual PR
I don’t think anyone really understands PageRank, including Google. The last 3 months all sorts of wacky stuff has been happening with rankings.
Can someone please tell me why my website http://www.spiralteck.com page ranks keeps alternating between pr3 and pr4
I also experienced the same for my site of dropping PR. But this post removed the darkness of my mind and now I’m feeling better. Thanks a lot Mr.Baker.
I personally think Pagerank has less and less meaning nowadays, consistent with Google’s advice for website owners to not be obsessed by it. My site’s PR has dropped over the years to PR3 but it doesn’t matter because if you searched for “seo” on Google Singapore, it still appears in the top 5 out of 240 million results. So don’t lose sleep over your dropped PR …unless you’re selling links. ;)
How to increase back our google page rank?
Yes, there are a lot of sites which is has the google page rank down into 0 rank, such as my site.
Thanks for your consideration. :)
I feel more and more that page rank has become meaningless. Our website was at one point a page rank of six it has now dropped to three, but our site has moved up the google rankings from page 17 to page 5! This I feel is a major bit of evidence that shows that page rank is pointless – so don’t worry!
We have a transport website, that was page rank 4 and now it has dropped to page rank 2 and we have never had paid links. why is this happening…
From what I’ve seen the last few months, Google has changed the way PR is calculated so that it is industry weighted.
Transport is a very competitive online industry (car hire, limo hire and so on), so it’s now a lot harder to get a high PR for that sector.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that even PR is dropping rankings stay the same.
By dropping PR and keeping rankings, Google keeps quality while at the same time discouraging the sale of links.
My blog turn from PR3 to zero after changing domain name. Now I’m working hard to get it back.
Hi,
I have been reading alot about SEO, We have a new website this week. How do we proceed to get good ranking without paid links.
I am agree with the following u mentioned in your post. I noticed my PR Down.
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.
This is nice site to visit iam glad to say that i learn a lot of new things from this site
nice job
thank you
crack Google Pagerank
I think it is both!
We gained in rank.
I’ve also just realized that my page rank dropped to “0″, and I can’t explain it. I’ve never paid for links, or used any shady methods for promoting, but now, I’m back to ground zero…
Gr8 Post !!!
My story:
- Two of my sites went from PR5 to PR0 : paid links
- 1 of my site has very strong natural backlinks but still PR0 after one year, traffic keeps on increasing
- 1 of my site has weak backlinks but is still PR3, traffic keeps on decreasing
Weird situation !
we have experienced a total colaps in the traffic to our website… can someone advise as to what we are doing wrong… we just suddenly lost 2/3 of our traffic without making any drastic changes to our blog
page rank gone for my east oast cyprus villas website. was rank 5??
When I started my site with very little content, I had a Google page rank of 4.
I have had steady traffic, steadily contributed relevant original content to my site and now my rank is Zero.
When I check for my key words on Google, I come up on the first page, typically in the first position.
Like others who have commented, I am confused and wish I understood how this all works.
Like JJ Murphy, I had a site that went from 4 to 0. I don’t buy links or use any black hat SEO tricks. In Google, there are a few dozen search terms that come up in the number one spot and I get lots of Google traffic, even with a zero.
Somehow I don’t think there is any real formula that is consistent with Google in ranking. They may have over-thought the algorithm and as a result sites are not ranked in any logical manner.
Okay I checked mine with Firefox and it gives me a PR1 and with IE6 I get a PR2 is this a Firefox glitch ?
page rank is a total waste of time. i do not understand why people are still following it.
We have been told its because of the google searchwiki, and google’s making the search results more useful for the end users. Use http://whynotad.com for example – if you search for ‘free online advertising’ you can find the site on page one listings, however the site has recently dropped its google page rank.
this is very informative. thanks to all of you for the information!
Page rank is still a very important factor for ranking in google. I have seen sites with lower PR rank higher than their competitors. I would still aim for the best PR I could get for my site.
Two my site drop to zero no paid link. I think drop PR because no traffic from google search engine and keyword no popular again. I think this is selection process by google to choose site more popular for their user.
Even though your PR may drop, you will probably not notice any changes in the search engine results. I suspect Google has introduced a new ranking factor that we have no visibility of.
wow thanks for the info
Our site has gone from a 1 to a 3 in 3 months. I hear that it is very quick. When it did go from PR 1 – 3 I did see a significant change in the search engine results.
Very interesting article.Good work
Funny, my rank dropped from 2 to 1 (we are so new but I was expecting a rise, especially with traffic going up), but the interesting thing, this happened after I added a “sponsored link” via PayPal button on the homepage. There are other sites that do this, like you said, the “good company” factor, I’m hoping this is the reason. My Google diagnostics shows no significant errors and relevant keyword searches still position us on page one. Yet I’m still scratching my head over this one …
I will never have paid links i rather use CPC clicks they are much more effective.
I have spent the last 2 years building relevant content and natural links from partners. I have made steady progress but other companies that clearly use paid links seem to doing really well on rankings as well as PR. Seems strange.
I never thought about Google page rank. I just notice one day when i register one of paid review, its shown PR4, then i check on google pr checker, it was really 4. i have done 4 paid reviews so far with about 100 plus posts and still maintain at pr4. but today i after 5th reviews, my pr dropped to 2? is ti because of it?
I have been stuck on page rank 0 for a while now, not sure if i was penalized by google for any reason. I was ranking high for my keywords up until the last few days and then I dropped back ten or so pages. As others have said, I think pagerank is less relevant and is only useful for the ego. But google are changing the algorithms regularly and we have to play a guessing game to keep up.
I agree google page ranking is becoming a pain and is very frustrating
I think google page ranking is less relevant as my page rank has been stuck on 3 for a while after a lot of work.
Google page rank is a waste of time.
I agree but i still believe it has some importance even though it changes everytime.
I was PR4 for a good while now down to two after my back links increased. Confusing though it is I have added around 19 pages over the last 30 days. Traffic increased a fair amount and my SERP seems to have increased as well.
This thread was started way back a couple of years. Isn’t it funny that an old post can last like this? I guess Google dropping our rankings occasionally is something that will always happen! I know it really shouldn’t matter, but I’ll admit, I am one who worries constantly about it, fearful that people are dropping my links or whatever!
March 19, 2009 – My page rank went from 3 to zero … even though I have acquired about 50 new high page rank backlinks in the last few months. I have done absolutely nothing wrong. What’s going on? I just don’t get this any more!!!
Thanks for the post on the recent drop in Google Page Rank all over the internet. I too was a bit surprised by my recent drop in Google PR. My website had a PR=2 and then all of the sudden it dropped to having a PR=1. It is now back up to PR=2. So why the drop? I have never really had a linking strategy. All I ever did was be myself – contribute to forums here and there only if I had expertise; wrote the occasional article, submitted it to directories; was a contributer to some blog posts not to mention commenting on a few blog sites. That’s really it; my website had a Google Page Rank of PR=2 even before I had my first web page up on the internet, hosted by a shared provider! What gives?
Although I do specifically recall reading a article on link building prior to the drop. I remember it talking about using automated link building software or outsourcing to places in India. Well, I did use the Google Site submit and a few others to a few other search engines; prior I had relied exclusively on the search engine’s spiders to find my site through keyword-rich anchor text (not a bad strategy after all!).
I swear using those darn autosubmittors to search engines and directories caused a sudden surge in backlinks, perhaps too artificial for Google. Lesson learned.
Happy linking,
Daniel Tetreault.
Webmaster – Sidney, BC
I tell you the more I read the more confused I get! I think I’ll just forget about the whole PR thing since it makes me crazy! Some of my sites have graybar though they are years old and only natural links have ever been used…and some have a high PR from links I bought once and let go again. Screw it!
interesting….
If Google wanted to stop people from “selling PageRank”, they would eliminate PageRank. Much more useful to let people go crazy over it and use the rank to assert their authority over link sales.
Let’s never forget that selling links is how Google stays in business. It is a multi-billion dollar annual revenue stream the company would die without.