Page Rank Myth

[Epic]

The PR has not been update for than a year now, in the last 2 years, Google representatives keeps claiming that the page rank will not be updated or or is officially dead and then an update comes out, I am sure their representatives are reflecting Google policy.

In October 2013, Google, Matt Cutts implied that he will be surprised if Page Rank update before the end of year. And still PR was updated on December 6, 2013.

A few months ago John Mueller said "We will probably not going to be updating it [PageRank] going forward, at least in the Toolbar PageRank."

Why do you think they want to be unclear about whether they will keep the page rank or not?

 

[Nytshade]

I don't think page rank was updated on the 11th of October, 2014. I think it was last updated 2013 but I'm not sure, you might be right.

To answer your question: they're unclear because page rank is all about backlinks and it's easy to game the system if the search algorithm relies on backlinks and page rank. That is why they're trying hard to switch to authority as compared to page rank.

It's a great strategy for them to confuse seo people, so that they don't game the system. More confusion keeps their results clean and less spammy. They just want to offer their users the best results.

 

[Epic]

Epic

Yes, you are right, the last update was December 6, 2013, I have made a mistake with dates.

 

[elcidofaguy]

Page Rank has always been a smoke screen and has never been a primary factor for ranking on the SERPs... I've seen plenty of sites which get virtually zero traffic, have little value to zero backlinks and other indicators and yet have a reasonable PR (noting its not fake, although there are many fake PR sites which are easy to spot)! In my opinion PR not being updated is a great thing and I will be glad to never see it again or discuss the value of sites based on PR...

 

[brotherZ]

I am not sure why people focus on PageRank anymore. PageRank isn't an indication of how much traffic a website receives. Outside the webmaster community, no one really pays attention to PageRank. I see people using PageRank mainly to sell links and I haven't gotten fooled by this in the past thinking that I would get high traffic from sites with high PageRank.

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

I'm not sure why you would think you would get high traffic from sites like that. That's your own fault for not understanding what PageRank is and getting fooled.

PageRank has nothing to do with traffic, content, or anything else on a webpage. PageRank is a measure of the quality of incoming links to a webpage. That's it.

Google updates PageRank daily. They just never published the data publicly daily, and are likely never to publish it publicly again.

I do think they will continue to offer the PR Toolbar though. Anyone that is dumb enough to have that installed on their browser is letting Google spy on everything they do. That is the only reason I could see them deciding to push out a public PR update again. At some point they might decide the data they gain from spying on everyone using the Toolbar in their browser outweighs the negatives of making it easier for SEOs to understand the value of incoming links. Pushing out updates might keep people using the Toolbar and gain new users of it.

 

[jessica89]

I'm actually happy PageRank is gone nowadays... Because strong websites with a nice back link structure only got like a PR 3 and some websites got a PR7 without any incoming links and age... so i was never sure how i could up my PR... but nowadays i just focus on quality incoming links

 

[kamleshnishad]

Page Rank is dead it doesn't effect SEO anymore. Ignoring PR focus on Domain authority instead.

 

[FPForum]

I'm also pretty glad that pagerank is gone now.. They didn't update it frequently enough and it was very easy to fake or manipulate. I personally believe there are better tools out these days.

 

[johnludhi]

PR has different meaning

I'm also pretty glad that pagerank is gone now.. They didn't update it frequently enough and it was very easy to fake or manipulate. I personally believe there are better tools out these days.

I think PR still has the same value but with expansion of internet particularly with its ever increasing size it has become one of the several important factors.

 

[elcidofaguy]

elcidofaguy

What are you talking about? Have you read this thread? PR has not been updated for over two years now (last updated Dec 6th 2013) - and by all accounts will no longer be updated...

PR is dead as a dodo... In that time since the last update - a lot has happened with sites no longer being the same PR as that of two years ago and lets not forget new sites after that last update.. Seriously forget PR!

 

[johnludhi]

johnludhi

Yes I have read the thread. PR is not updated doesn't mean that it has lost its value. What is behind the scenes is hard to predict but if you read the PR algorithm, you will understand that it is one of the basic principle without which it is hard for search engines to rank the sites. If you get high PR link from a relevant site, you will see the impact. People started to game the system once they understood the value of PR. To filter out the spam, Google has to come up with new filters such as social backlinks, relevant backlinks etc. which has in turn lessen the value of PR.

Cheers

 

[elcidofaguy]

elcidofaguy

PR Not being updated for over 2 years DOES MEAN IT HAS LOST VALUE!!! That said PR was always a smoke screen as per my first response on this thread... Seriously are you going to use out of date data for evaluations? what about sites that are two years old (after the last update) which have a N/A... Perhaps you will continue to use it 5 years from now, 10 yrs, 20yrs ... etc - in reference to data which today is seriously outdated and will not be updated. LMAO...

You're better of smoking dope... If you want to continue using it then by all means do so, but please refrain from misinforming people as that is another matter...

If you are looking for authority sites for backlinks which Google trusts with efforts to boost your rankings then I recommend that you use a combination of third party metrics (Moz DA/PA, Majestic CF/TF) in addition to examining the sites on-page / off-page SEO e.g. internal link structure, slios, backlinking profile as well as the obvious checks to see how well the site ranks on the serps etc

I've written about page rank on this thread explaining why it is a smoke screen. From that you will understand that Google has never released its true ranking metric for very obvious reasons... In sum PR RIP...

 

[natemaingard]

natemaingard

Where do you get that from?

 

[Maja]

Google has stopped updating page rank of the websites as getting ranking with paid links were increasing. So to stop such activities Google has taken such action

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

Technically, Google has never stopped updating PageRank. They still are updating it daily. They are just not sharing the information publicly.

 

[natemaingard]

natemaingard

Why is that?

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

Because if you know the actual PR of webpages, it makes it easier to build stronger links and game the search engine rankings.

Not sharing the information publicly is also an effort to combat the people buying domains to setup private networks. When PR was updated frequently, it was easier to setup a private network that would rank even a webpage that was total junk for highly competitive keywords. It is a little trickier now.

 

[natemaingard]

natemaingard

Gotta love Google and their stupidity.

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

What was stupid? I think it was smart of them to stop updating PR publicly. If I was them, I would stop announcing Panda and Penguin updates too.

 

[natemaingard]

natemaingard

Why not have them be public? What's the harm?

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

Because a link's strength is largely impacted by the PR of the page the link appears on. Having that knowledge, it is much easier to build stronger links. And I can tell you from testing, PR trumps relevance, content quality, and any other link metric you want to think of.

Tons of people were buying domains based on PR to setup private networks, and it was pretty easy to evaluate a strong domain when PR was updated frequently. Now it is much more difficult.

 

[Danlucy]

Danlucy

This guy is learning about SEO, I am sure that

But to be honest, I learned more things from answers on your questions

 

[natemaingard]

natemaingard

You're right. Prior to coming here, I had never cared or knew anything about SEO.

 

[Danlucy]

Danlucy

Yeh, you should learn SEO because it is easy and best way to drive traffic to your sites or blogs without paying any fees

I also love SEO and it is bringing great things for my site, traffic and sales.

 

[RDO Servers]

RDO Servers

Me too. My background is in programing and servers. I know a little about SEO, but constantly learning more from the great people on WMS!

 

[Danlucy]

Danlucy

I read more answers from SEOPub here, they are very informative and I think he is a SEO expert and can help you to improve skills on SEO.

 

[RDO Servers]

RDO Servers

Indeed! SEOPub is a great resource for all things SEO!

 

[elcidofaguy]

elcidofaguy

Indeed and in the same token Google has many other parameters which it updates daily/regularly which have never been shared publicly... There is also a lot of algo tweeking/evolution.. In particular that applies to the true ranking parameter (commonly referred to as TrustRank) which is not PageRank and further has never been exposed openly to the public... that's in addition to its spam flags, penalty derivation etc... Obviously there is a ton of data which Google does not share... The same also applies to other search engines too...

It is also worth noting that Google even states that PR is one of many factors used to determine which pages appear in search results... PR alone does not explain why a site ranks on the SERPs and has never been the case... That was/is real stupid of people who do that and use PR in isolation, hence why I describe it as a smokescreen... and especially today when PR has not been updated for over two years to the public...

Further just because PR is not updated publicly does not mean Google changed its algo... It just means that Google does not want to share that openly as with other parameters - i.e just think of the massive industry built up on PR links, especially all the fake stuff etc... that's just the tip of the iceberg had their true ranking metric had ever been exposed... My opinion of PR is that it is an indicator of how well a website is established and was a means of web masters to be rewarded for following guidelines.. I've seen many sites gain a high PR with zero backlinks which do not rank on the SERPs, do not pass any significant link juice and also carry very little traffic... again - PR does not explain why a site ranks on the SERPs...!!!

Finally there is more chances of Coca-cola sharing their recipe than Google exposing their true ranking metrics... Its never happened and never will....

 

[natemaingard]

Yeh, you should learn SEO because it is easy and best way to drive traffic to your sites or blogs without paying any fees

I also love SEO and it is bringing great things for my site, traffic and sales.

I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually since I plan to be on Webmaster Sun for the long run.

Me too. My background is in programing and servers. I know a little about SEO, but constantly learning more from the great people on WMS!

I'm jealous of that background. I'd love to learn programming. I'm sure you know more about SEO than I do.