Google PageRank is for Entertainment Purposes Only
This is shocking news, I mean, we all knew PageRank was not something to look at too closely these days, but for Google to come out and say “The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only”, kind of shocks me. I can not confirm this to be accurate, but a post at Search Engine Watch just a few minutes ago claims this to be the case. The member said that he emailed Google asking why a page’s PageRank is zero and he got the following response from Google.
The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only. Due to repeated attempts by hackers to access this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequently because is it not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is several months old.
If the toolbar is showing a PR of zero, this is because the user is visiting a new URL that hasn’t been updated in the last update. The PR that is displayed by the Google Toolbar is not the same PR that is used to rank the webpage results so there is no need to be concerned if your PR is displayed as zero. If a site is showing up in the search results, it doesn’t not have a real PR of zero, the Toolbar is just out of date.
Apparently, Google is still using PageRank to rank sites but just not displaying the current value to the Google Toolbar user.
Columnist Barry Schwartz is the Editor of Search Engine Roundtable and President of RustyBrick, Inc., a Web services firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales.
I’d strongly disagree with the statement that the toolbar PageRank is for “entertainment purposes only”–millions of toolbar users use the PageRank display to judge the quality of pages. I think it’s also a little irresponsible to quote JohnGalt claiming to talk to some random person at Google, and then for you to quote it as a reponse from Google, which makes it sound more official. I’m happy to refute that this is any sort of official stance.
Google PageRank is for Entertainment Purposes Only
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Thank you for your input GoogleGuy, we’ll be sure to look into this and post a follow up.
I have to agree with GoogleGuy and the post as well as the source are misleading. Key point is that the Google toolbar is everywhere and PageRank is critical to ranking. This means website owners will judge sites because it provides a measure albeit an old one.
Jon
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Google PageRank is for Entertainment Pur…
You really must investigate this matter, very well,contact Google about it, “Google page rank is for entertainment purposes only” only then you will know the truth.
It’s more than just one employees’ opinion at Google. It’s posted on their site somewhere – but I cannot find it at the moment.
With that said, I use PR all of the time to judge sites, but I take it with a grain of salt for the reasons mentioned.