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Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog

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I get a lot of questions about Google’s Page rank and when it will update again.

I’m not sure if people think I look like Matt Cutts or whether they think I’ve got some inside word – but the question hits my inbox quite a lot.

So what’s my response these days?

Forget about when and if Page Rank will update and spend your time building a better blog!

You see – Google are in the business of helping their users find great, authoritative and credible content on any given topic and I’m increasingly becoming convinced that the more you spend time building sites that have that content the more highly you’ll be ranked in Google.

Sure, you need to know some good basic Search Engine Optimization principles because it will help your blog reach it’s potential – but don’t be obsessed with it.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Thank you! You saved me from almost worrying back there. I’d be concentratin’ on my content now, rather than getting traffic with PR.

    Thanks a bunch!

  2. Google PR is such a fickle thing. One day you can be PR6 and next day you are PR4. Sadly it seldom works the other way though…

    blog for the sake of blogging. Blog because you love it. PR, traffic, and money will follow if you do things right.

  3. You have no idea how much I’m hoping Page Rank goes the way of the dinosaurs….. People obsess over it to the point of having nothing real or helpful to say anymore. The focus is no longer on the customer, or reader.
    Most of the people in my target market are even lucky if they know how to move around the internet, much less what a Page Rank is….

  4. Darren, the more I read and listen to informed comment like yours, the more I am convinced that building a blog (and/or Squidoo lens) that is credible and trusted is the way to go. I am now getting daily confirmation of this. We are very much in an “engagement” era in internet marketing – people want to be connected (hence the growth of Facebook, MySpace, etc.).

  5. I am new to blogging and still dont understand the whole “Pagerank” thing, is there a place I can read up on this? Like a Blogger FAQ website?

    Thanks for the info, ive been reading your other pages and theyre very informative

  6. Very good video! I agree 100%, what’s the point on concentrating on only SEO when content is key. Setting up a foundation to work with is much more important to start of with then concentrating on pagerank which of course is still an important factor.

    Thanks for the video!

  7. We are hoping for a PR update to occur in the followoing days. I liked your video and will continue to read your blog
    for some good info. Thanks

  8. I fully agree that the point of blogging is to generate good content. The secrecy and voodoo that surrounds PageRank and SEO is one aspect of blogging that I could do without. It gets frustrating to know that some blogs for whatever reason take off immediately (1000s of hits per day) and I still average only 25 per day. I just like to know ‘the rules of the game’ and be sure everyone is on an even playing field.

  9. Focusing on your blog IS MUCH MORE important than trying to get your blog found. Content will bring visitors!

  10. Focus on your blog! If you build it they will come.

  11. I still find myself drifting back into that way of thinking so it is good to get a kick in the pants to remind me to keep my brain power heading in the right direction.

  12. You are so right Darren! Building a better blog and better content will go hand in hand with your PR. We just need to focus on giving our readers more of what they want and stop trying to keep up with the cyber joneses as far as PR is concerned.

  13. The cyberjoneses are not always the ones who come up with good material. Don´t try to be like them.

  14. shelley says: 01/28/2008 at 3:25 am

    “Build a better Mousetrap and the world will make a beaten path to your door.”

    Content is indeed the King. I have never heard of anyone visiting a website because it has high pagerank. People visit websites for content.

    http://www.learnerstv.com

  15. I am afraid that so much effort is placed on page rank that webmasters can hardly focus on anything else.

  16. The funny thing about PR is that I had built my WordPress blog over a year ago, populated it a bit, and then was side tracked. When I decided to come back and look at updating it, the blog had risen to a PR4. I though “Wow” I am going to work and this and get it higher!

    So, I made a number of changes to theme, design, added pages, lots of posts but guess what?

    The change was great, but apparently TOO MUCH TOO FAST for Google to like it, and I dropped to a PR2.

    Alas, the Blog IS wayyyy better though :>)

  17. You guys still talking about the same thing?

  18. Yeah ur right, PR doesnt matter much, iv just got to keep getting the posts up there and build solid content on my blog: http://www.indimoto.com/blog/autonewsamerica.php

  19. awesome! it was something i kept reminding myself.
    especially being a newbie, i was not focused enough on the right set of things. “build a quality blog build a quality blog” :)

    Tks Darren!
    hey if you coming to Singapore, let me know! Would love to see you personally!

  20. We just need to focus on giving our readers more of what they want and stop trying to keep up with the cyber joneses as far as PR is concerned.

  21. I don’t think pagerank is they key here it should only be used as a guidline

    Jamie

  22. it is unbelievable how many people have so much ideas and things to write about PR ranking and how they feel about it. Although I see that RealRank is so much taken into consideration these days I do not understand why any of these ranks matters at all when you could actually find out how many visitors actually goes to a site and how many of them actually come back. that is the real way of actually ranking a site to find out how many people would love the site and come back again so many times that they tend to be part of it…

  23. Without trying to sound like a drone – leave off the PR! Google decides to give you PR, customers give you $$$. Who would you prefer to please.

  24. i wanted to ask u that if i convert my blogs from blogspot to .com or .net will it affect my ranking on google search please help me out and suggest me a name and topic for blog.Please Reply Soon

  25. Hi, i wanted to ask you that converting from blogspot to .com or .net does it affect our search engine ranking? and i also wanted to ask you that if u can suggest me a name and topic for buliding a blog.Please Reply

  26. I am currently working on the optimization of the website of the translation agency Datawords (www.datawords.co.uk) and I can tell you that to get the best results on search engine you have to fight every day and constantly find new ideas.
    With the advent of the Internet I think that that kind of communication techniques will be more and more frequently used by companies. This is just the beginning.

  27. We do not need to hurry up for PR, the quality is a goal!

  28. great! thanks very much for sharing!

  29. Hi Darren ,

    You have no idea how much I’m hoping Page Rank goes the way of the dinosaurs….. People obsess over it to the point of having nothing real or helpful to say anymore. The focus is no longer on the customer, or reader.
    Most of the people in my target market are even lucky if they know how to move around the internet, much less what a Page Rank is….
    But yet indeed it does help when you are looking into making a decent living out of the blog that you have created.
    I really do hope that people will start understanding on how alexa and pagerank does not actually qualify to make any statements or predictions on how good a blog is.

  30. I understand well the explanation but google still make new pagerank updates and I don’t think pagerank is unimportant. But on the other hand, I shoul thank you for the information. I don’t forget your suggestion on building a website. Regards.

  31. I’m not so sure when people say it can take forever to get pagerank.

    I started my e-commerce related (ebay) blog 2 weeks ago and a few days ago it jumped from 0 PR to a PR4. First blog i’ve ever had.

    I have no SEO experience, not a great writer, but I think the topics I write about are current, useful and coming from the “horses mouth” is the main reasons I get page views.

    I see so many blogs/e-books/spammy sites talking about how to make money online or what’s involved in an e-commerce company startup. But when you check their stats, they don’t sell online, they have had no success and if they have, its been enough to get a page view but not enough to engage the reader.

    Am I making millions online with e-commerce? No. Is the company I’m with growing every month and experiencing success even with a sub-par economy …yes.

    Back to the topic, great content and experience on what you write about has contributed to the “success” I’ve had so far. Dont copy content, but take a different angle if you feel the urge to write about it.

  32. you are absolutely right. a good blog is the best thing to have good traffic, but it`s easy to talk about pr is not so important when you got a pr 6. i just have a new blog and realy can`t wait to the next google pr run because that`s gona be my first one.

  33. Extremely good point. Its far easier in the long run to just produce content that people use and will link to and bookmark for you. Rather than spending all your time obsessing over the minutia of SEO.

  34. good point, with better content, google search engine and readers will find you everyday.

  35. I also share this opinion, content is king!

  36. Creating useful content is a topic of its own and one that deserves many more blogs than are currently out there, devoted to this art.

  37. content is eveyting, forget about else…

  38. I agree, and it’s kind of sad how so many people are obsessed with pagerank and how ugly it has made peoples blogs, with thousands of spammy links.

  39. Very informative video. If you have decent content, page rank will follow.

  40. According to me, content matters and not the page rank.

  41. From this all can understand that content stands first and if it was good page rank will follow automatically.Thank you.

  42. Is it better to concentrate on content then?

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