Written on October 24th, 2007 at 05:10 pm by Darren Rowse
ProBlogger – PageRank 4
Wow – this is an interesting one.
ProBlogger’s page rank is currently at a 4 – and so is Digital Photography School.
I’d heard blogs had been penalized in their page rank recently for selling text links – bizarre thing is that neither of these two blogs sell links. I’ve never sold text links at DPS and haven’t on ProBlogger for months now – perhaps I was penalized for taking them off!
Both had page ranks of 6 yesterday and previously ProBlogger was a 7. Even jobs.problogger.net has been hit and it’s on a subdomain. Looks like something’s going on over at the Googleplex – is anyone else noticing changes today or did someone over there take offense at something I said? Maybe they don’t like that I took AdSense off ProBlogger (joking).
PS: just noticed Copyblogger is a 4 now too – hmmmm.
Update – Andy Beard and Daniel Scocco are compiling lists of blogs and other sites impacted by this PageRank ‘update’.
271 Responses to “ProBlogger – PageRank 4” - Add Yours
Dave
October 24th, 2007 5:40 pm
Yes, it appears the google machine is doing a shake up, plenty of reports of peopls page-rank going down (not many going up) and suggestions that its penalties realted to selling links, although that hasn’t been backed up by hard facts as yet.
Also noticed that Google is having a real issue with channel reporting over the last day or so, with numbers reported across channels being way off the totals. This again seems to be widespread.
Wondering if the downtime at the weekend has impacted elsewhere on the system. Nothing as yet on the official google blog.
Henry Zeng
October 24th, 2007 5:41 pm
Oh, Shocking news…
But I think PageRank is never a criteria by which to judge a good blog.
Problogger is still one of the standards upon which I judge a good blog :)
Lifesperspective
October 24th, 2007 5:44 pm
Yes, this news is creating a flurry of activity in the forums. Lots of sites have had a downward shift of PR, which makes me suspect that it is just a readjusting of PR standards. May not be as bad as it looks. Think only time will tell. My only wish is that there was more transparency by those at G for webmasters.
Tejvan Pettinger
October 24th, 2007 5:59 pm
Sometimes Google are rubbish. They put splogs at the top of serps, and page rank – well they would be better off stopping it altogether. I’ve been waiting 5 months for a page rank update. It sill says PR0
The new page rank is RSS subscribers – and you do pretty well on that count. – and there’s nothing google can do about that.
Blogging Success Journey
October 24th, 2007 6:08 pm
I’ve seen lots of blog drop in PR today, oh dear.. is this gonna hurt the blog much?
Michael
October 24th, 2007 6:10 pm
I wish that Google would just do something already because it has been forever since they last updated and there has been nothing but fluctuations in big websites PR. If they want to get rid of pagerank then just do it, if not, update it.
Meg
October 24th, 2007 6:13 pm
Sorry to hear. I’m seeing other sites take a hit too. Oops – they did it again.
Joanna Young
October 24th, 2007 6:14 pm
Isn’t this why Brian C is nudging us towards a different business model?
Community for Bloggers
October 24th, 2007 6:16 pm
C’mon, aim higher!
Maris
October 24th, 2007 6:18 pm
I received this ‘present’ from Google about week ago when my PR dropped from 5 to 4, but the best part is that this PageRank drop doesn’t hurt traffic at all.
While there is no traffic drop on older posts which are main traffic generators I’m starting to notice that new posts are taking lower positions on search results because they are comming now from PR4 blog not PR5.
Sotek
October 24th, 2007 6:20 pm
Interesting.. I haven’t noticed any changes on all of my sites.
But I think you’re onto something.. my sites use AdSense. I think you should put it back on :-) You know, if you don’t make money for Google it won’t make money (or send traffic) for you.
Mani Karthik - DailySEOblog
October 24th, 2007 6:22 pm
Google must have edited it’s algorithm recently since some new metrics have been introduced like the “link purchases” factor.
I don’t think his has anything to do with taking off google ads though :)
Okay, there are so many bring-downs in PR because of obvious reasons, but has anybody reported an upgrade in PR? That would be interesting to know.
Caroline Middlebrook
October 24th, 2007 6:22 pm
I must being doing something really great to hold my PR then. No drop for me – still unranked :p
Sotek
October 24th, 2007 6:23 pm
LOL @Caroline
Jorge Lesmes
October 24th, 2007 6:25 pm
What is your first option to check Pagerank through multiple google datacenters?
Erica
October 24th, 2007 6:28 pm
I’m still the same at the moment too, although I was predicted to go up and that hasn’t happened :(
Meg
October 24th, 2007 6:35 pm
@ Caroline – go on rub it in ;) I finally got a rank – “0″
SEO Mash
October 24th, 2007 6:39 pm
About half of the datacenters have problogger.net still with a PR6 and half are showing PR4. I had two PR6 sites drop down to a 5 last week and the same sites are now down to a PR4. Who knows what is going on. In spite of the PR changes, the traffic from Google seems to be pretty much unchanged.
Hyder
October 24th, 2007 6:52 pm
Some of the datacenters show old PR and some show the new lower PR.
I dropped from a 5, to a 4, to a 3 now. Even John Chow has dropped, well at least he was expected. But ProBlogger, CopyBlogger, etc…? Hmm…what is Google trying to say?
April
October 24th, 2007 6:52 pm
Darren, perhaps it’s because you tell bloggers that selling links is a good way to make money. Maybe people are telling Google that they’ve been selling links because of you.
Bengt
October 24th, 2007 6:54 pm
My guess is that they are implementing new fuzzy logic to get more relevant serps. Google have earlier talked about getting relevance going again. This might be what they was hunching us about…
Michael Dunlop
October 24th, 2007 7:02 pm
Retireat21.com went down from 5 to 4 to PR 3!
But my website http://www.webdesigndev.com which had no content like a week ago, stayed at page rank 4!? And has like 5 back links.
This is mad!
Yehuda Berlinger
October 24th, 2007 7:09 pm
My PR dropped from 6 to 5 recently. Funny how PR has no correlation to Alexa rank, number of visitors, number of subscribers, number of comments, or even number of inlinks.
I think I may be one of the only bloggers who gets depressed seeing only Google hits in my stats. I keep thinking: “where are my regulars? Ah, here’s one.” Googlers hit you for one page and then go away. Whoopdee doo. Hits with 2 pages or more really interest me.
Stop writing for Google.
Yehuda
Markus Tressl
October 24th, 2007 7:16 pm
There is something really strange going on!
Just a couple of days ago my blog dropped from PR4 to a PR3.
Now I double checked when I read your post and now the PR is even down to 2!!!
Any Ideas?
Chris Baskind
October 24th, 2007 7:17 pm
I suppose the real question, Darren is this: How are your Google referrals? Any noticeable change in traffic so far?
Alex
October 24th, 2007 7:22 pm
Just today the rank on one of my sites dropped from 5 down to a 3. We had a 5 for the past year and a half. I don’t think this is something to worry too much about. If Google is re-adjusting their rank system in order to get rid of cheaters and provide better quality search results… more power to them!
Michael Woo
October 24th, 2007 7:29 pm
Gosh, I’m really worried about this. Google implemented the PR system and I think that they are just making this a huge loop. Why can’t they just use back the same ol system?
But seriously, the PR issue is a BIG issue as advertisers use it as a benchmark when advertising on your site… although it’s not entirely 100% accurate…
Dave
October 24th, 2007 7:30 pm
I think you’ve got to bear in mind that your actual pagerank is fluctuating all the time, and if its now dropped to 4, it probably been 4 for quite a while, just not visible to you. Therefore unless you’ve noticed a huge drop in visitors over a reasonable period of time, I’d not pay much attention to it.
My main site has been pagerank 3 for the last four years – it never goes up, never goes down, yet traffic has grown steadily and is now probably 500% higher than it was a couple of years ago. Add to the fact that I seem to have zero backlinks and it makes me wonder what value to place in pagerank at all.
Damien
October 24th, 2007 7:30 pm
Look like is another Google Dance again. As for me, the pagerank does not affect my traffic at all, so I didn’t put too much effort and attention to it.
Lowell
October 24th, 2007 7:37 pm
Another drop here – from 4 to 3…
Louiss
October 24th, 2007 7:37 pm
Not really a good news, every blog is down, down and down. My blog drop from pr 5 till now, pr 3. http://bloggingsecret.blogspot.com
James Farmer
October 24th, 2007 7:41 pm
While http://blogsavvy.net has been updated about twice in the last two years and is still a 6.
Gotta be ad related.
Blog Opinion
October 24th, 2007 7:54 pm
I have experienced that pagerank up and down . Not to worry ‘Darren’. You will get your page rank back .This may take few months. Remember ! I emailed your few time back that my page rank fell down to zero, I was changing my template constantly. Now I got my pagerank back. I am happy now ! I noticed when Google started updating pageranks of all website. Your rank may fall to N/A or above. Keep on blogging bloggers, update your content on regular basis. Your will get pagerank back soon.
Darren
October 24th, 2007 8:02 pm
PageRank is irrelevant now. It doesn’t affect search engine results. The only people worried about PageRank are those selling links, as it determines the price of those links.
Google are reducing PR on potential link selling sites to stop the trade. I suspect ProBlogger has been put into a potential link selling group.
Buzz Marketer
October 24th, 2007 8:11 pm
mine is still showing as pr5 at http://deanhunt.com
I wouldn’t take these changes as gospel just yet. Give it a week and see if there are any changes or official updates.
Sam Smith
October 24th, 2007 8:14 pm
I’m sorry to hear that the numbers have dropped in ProBlogger-world, but don’t forget that Google definitely doesn’t have the final say in what makes a quality blog…all of us do!
On the flip side, not all blogs have been docked on the PR. My self-improvement blog, which has been *un-ranked* for the past 3-4 months now has a page ranking of 0. I’m not completely giddy about the change, but at least *some* things are improving…
Jan
October 24th, 2007 8:31 pm
I think this PR-thing is rubbish, mainly the published number. These Google-guys are making fun of us, pushing some buttons and rolling on the floor laughing… One of my most frequently updated and linked blogs dropped from 5 to 4, another sleeping blog kept its 5, without getting any new incoming links. I don’t think that there’s any kind of traceable logic behind this results…
ejcross.com
October 24th, 2007 8:43 pm
I agree with Sam as I don’t worry about the page rank…just don’t have one yet!
I wonder if the Google page rank shake ups will ever get straightened out? From what I hear it seems like anytime they adjust the formulas, the ranks shake up but readjust fairly quickly. Is that correct?
Dave Child
October 24th, 2007 9:11 pm
I’ve dropped from 6 to 4. I do have some paid links, so maybe that’s part of it, but traffic appears unaffected. I also run AdSense.
Fredrik Gyllensten
October 24th, 2007 9:22 pm
Thats stupid, This site is much more popular then many higher ranked sites – and that means Google got a problem!
Wayne Liew
October 24th, 2007 9:25 pm
I thought the update was completed last week and I thought my blog will have no chance to grasping some PR since it is still unranked due to the freshness I guess…
Anyway, since Darren has just experienced the Google shake up, I think everything is not over yet, hoping to get something around 3 but nothing is fine with me as well.
I still have this in mind, will Techcrunch’s PR drop?
Dex
October 24th, 2007 9:44 pm
@ Wayne
As of now Tech crunch is still high at 8 as of this time. I just wonder when will google put some PR at my blog new blog
Calvin
October 24th, 2007 9:45 pm
Oops that’s too bad. I saw Johnchow.com pagerank is dropping too. It was PR6 or something before that.
Victor
October 24th, 2007 9:53 pm
So here is the real question:
Do you really care about your pagerank?
I don’t
Lets look at your alexa ranking: 2.169
That is pretty high, but do you care about that too?
If you really want the big boys in ads, you need to prove it with real statistics (server logs)
Of course pagerank and alexa are a quick way to measure a blogs popularity. But everyone knows their are not really reliable.
Just my 2 cents.
Ken Xu
October 24th, 2007 10:05 pm
I think google’s systems is being hacked by your competitor. They try to lower everyone’s pagerank. LOL!
Hey! This is nuts! What the hell Google is? This is unfair! May be you should make a campaign to fight google back.
BONTB
October 24th, 2007 10:10 pm
I dont know guy’s but I think the problem isn’t in selling tla’s i think they are just reorganizing PR’s thats all, why would page with 50 visitors a day have pr 5? and sites like myspace for example 8 or 9 ? thats a big difference.
I think PR should drop on all sites because it’s just over rated somethimes I am not saying for sites like problogger, valuable information lots of things to read and many visitors PR5 or PR6 is ok but I wouldn’t agree for example for PR7 or PR8
Kevin Muldoon
October 24th, 2007 10:11 pm
I’ve just checked and http://www.problogger.net still brings up a PR 6 (I checked a few sites).
They did a big PR drop a year or so ago so hopefully it’s all relevant (ie. if your PR blog goes down to 4 but so does every other blog in your niche it’s not that bad)
Patrick Burt
October 24th, 2007 10:20 pm
Where are you guys checking PR? I checked problogger on two sites and it’s still a 6?
Daniel Scocco
October 24th, 2007 10:27 pm
I gathered a quick list of big sites that lost PR here:
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/google-changing-the-pagerank-algorithm/
Looks like its not an update in PR but rather a distribution of penalties. I could be wrong though obviously.
Andy Beard came with the reason: paid links, that we already knew, but also link exchange inside blog networks.
jeffhall
October 24th, 2007 10:33 pm
This page went from PR3 to PR0. At the same time it moved from page 5 to page 1 for the search term ‘banana bars’
http://www.silverstall.com/bodyjew/banana_bars.htm
The only conclusion to draw is that PR is even less of a factor with ranking than it ever was.
Darren Rowse
October 24th, 2007 10:38 pm
it could be something to do with blog networks if engadget and weblogs inc blogs are down – although it’s a little odd as my DPS blog doesn’t link out to any of the blogs at b5 – so it must be a penalty because it’s being linked TO by other network blogs….. which I find odd.
Perhaps we can be linked to too much?
Deron Sizemore
October 24th, 2007 10:38 pm
Wow, sorry to hear that Darren. It seems anyone can fall victim to the big bully that is Google. lol.
Darren Rowse
October 24th, 2007 10:47 pm
Victor – you’re right, ultimately I don’t care what PR this blog has. The only people who seem to really care these days about it are those that make money as a result of it (either by selling links or reviews) – but it is odd that some fairly high profile blogs are all being re-ranked in the eyes of the biggest search engine in the world over night – yet others are not.
One more thing on the blog network interlinking thing. I’m still not convinced. For example TechCrunch has a list of links in some of it’s network’s blog all interlinking them yet there’s no penalties over there. Same thing over at Gawker’s blogs like Lifehacker which links to every other blog in the Gawker network. Seems like a pretty hard thing to police – people linking sites that they own to each other.
Anyway – ultimately it doesn’t change anything around here. Our traffic continues to go up, we continue to gather new readers and more links from others who like us – if Google want to change how they ‘rank’ us because I link to my coworkers and the projects that I work on – then that’s their right.
Richard Brown
October 24th, 2007 10:48 pm
So far so good for my blogs and sites. Maybe I’ll get some popcorn and watch the fireworks over the next two weeks… It should get interesting. Frankly I’m just glad to see Google doing SOMETHING. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Laurie Harshbarger
October 24th, 2007 10:53 pm
PR4 seems to be the magic number. My blog dropped from PR5 to 4, too. Not sure if it’s related, but I just added text links.
Milan
October 24th, 2007 10:53 pm
My site dropped from PR 5 to 3, I’m not running a blog and I never had paid links, just AdSense and affiliate links. But my other site with AdSense only is holding the same PR 4 as before…
Both sites are similar paintings galleries and the second PR 4 site is much younger with only 70+ backlinks vs. 1500+ for the first PR3 site. I’m confused…
Stephan Whelan
October 24th, 2007 11:00 pm
Whilst we’re strictly speaking not a blog – http://www.deeperblue.net – got hit with a PR reduction from 5 to 4 in last couple of weeks. It definitely seems related to selling text link ads. Spoke to TLA about it and got a very non-productive answer of:
“Google is a business just like we are a business. They choose to operate the way they wish and we operate in our way.”
Not particularly helpful.
Traffic doesn’t seem to have been hit in any way but we just don’t know how it is going to impact us in the long run.
Ryan Wagner
October 24th, 2007 11:06 pm
Ours dropped from a 6 to a 4 as well.
Colleen
October 24th, 2007 11:08 pm
My main blog was a 5…and dropped to a 4 two weeks ago, and I woke up this morning to find it was a 3. My PR 4’s have dropped to PR2.
side-line
October 24th, 2007 11:12 pm
I dropped from 6 to 3. Well that was quite a shock….
Cristian Dorobantescu
October 24th, 2007 11:15 pm
Yep, my rank is also down from 5 to 4. Still, it doesn’t seem to be affecting my visitors and position in searches.
tallfreak
October 24th, 2007 11:27 pm
Don’t worry Darren, you are still number one on google on a search for “about me.” :)
John Evans (Syntagma)
October 24th, 2007 11:32 pm
Yes, we’re being hammered too, and have been over the last two monthly changes, some 5s reducing to a ludicrous 2, for example.
We do sell a lot of links, but then we are a commercial operation, that’s what we do. Adsense is mostly text-link based.
Why should almighty Google decide what price we can get for our space? If it’s true, it’s definitely a restraint of trade.
Loretta
October 24th, 2007 11:34 pm
I keep hearing lots of reports of rank going down down down and no reports of it going up anywhere. Just another crazy day on the internet!
James
October 24th, 2007 11:36 pm
It doesn’t matter really, we don’t need pagerank to know if a site is popular or not, if a site is popular we’ll know about it soon enough :-)
Darren Rowse
October 24th, 2007 11:38 pm
John – feel your pain.
I can understand the text link penalties though – people buy text links so that they can increase their ranking in Google. People buy AdSense because they want traffic. Google don’t want their search results manipulated so they work against text links. I don’t like it any more than you do – but I can see their reasoning.
Linking within a network is different in my eyes. At b5 we link to other blogs in a channel in our sidebars – so that people can find more content on similar topics – it’s about giving readers more content that they can use and showing them what else we do. If it helps with SEO I guess I could see why they might disallow he power of such links – but to penalize for them is a little bizarre as they are a legit part of our business of showing people where they can read more content that we produce.
Michael
October 24th, 2007 11:42 pm
It all went to my site :)
Yeah that’s really strange – but I wouldn’t be particularly worried about a Page Rank of 4. I’m sure it’ll work itself out soon.
John Evans (Syntagma)
October 24th, 2007 11:46 pm
Darren, we also link across the network and have done so for some while without penalty.
I take your point about text links possibly being different from Adsense links, except that most have anchor text advertising commercial services. I really don’t see how a distinction can be made there.
I’ve just contacted Brock Boser at TLA. I’ll let you know what he has to say about this meltdown — and possible attack on the TLA business.
Brian Purkiss
October 24th, 2007 11:50 pm
I guess the Google Dance is taking place…
But I just did a check on http://www.problogger.net/ using iWebTool’s PageRank Checker and you had a bunch of fours, and a handfull of sixes.
Hm…
I wonder…
John Evans (Syntagma)
October 24th, 2007 11:52 pm
The Chief Operating Officer of Text Link Ads has just told me they will not reduce their prices for links despite PRs melting down across the board.
I suppose they will remove the PR element in their algorithm.
Just noticed our top trafficked site, which gets up to 20,000 uniques on a good day, has been reduced to 2. Wow! No comment necessary.
Rhys
October 24th, 2007 11:55 pm
Goes to show traffic is more important.
And now i’m just as popular as problogger ;)
Darren Rowse
October 24th, 2007 11:58 pm
John – TLA have been under attack for a while now from Google – I think that most of the penalties for text links happened a week or two back – this one seems a little different to me. Like I say – a lot of the sites being penalized don’t sell links – seems more to it.
Smart websites make money
October 25th, 2007 12:10 am
And I was waiting for a step up in my PR…
Adriana
October 25th, 2007 12:13 am
My site went from a PR5 to a PR4 a few weeks ago, but like others, my traffic hasn’t been affected. I do sell TLA links, and was told by someone I trust a lot that that’s why: google is reducing PR for sites that sell links.
Josh P
October 25th, 2007 12:15 am
Two sites of mine went from 6 to 3. Awesome.
Robert
October 25th, 2007 12:20 am
John Chow got cut down a couple of notches also.
kristinaQ
October 25th, 2007 12:31 am
Mine wasn’t exactly very high– only a 3, but it’s down to 2 now
Gino
October 25th, 2007 12:34 am
Well you do have Text Link Ads as a sponsor and im pretty sure google doesnt like them, that could be the reason?
Kanwal
October 25th, 2007 12:37 am
I have worked hard for my content and I hoping my pagerank atleast does not dip below PG4. I’m happy to be there or higher.
redwall_hp
October 25th, 2007 12:41 am
My sites are still the same. However, a blog I haven’t blogged on for months (I closed it) may have went *up*. I wonder if Google is updating their algorithm or something?
brem
October 25th, 2007 12:43 am
Got demoted from PR 5 to PR 4.
I sell text link ads…
Doh.
Oh well… I get mullah! :) $ $ $
John Lockwood
October 25th, 2007 12:46 am
I suspect it’s temporary, since I’ve also seen a great decrease in the number of indexed results (circa 50%) for certain keywords. Looks like the beginning of a more major change?
On the other hand, in support of the Google paranoia hypothesis, my own blog, which is a little minor local thing, has retained its PR6 rank, and one feature of it that may be germain is that I’ve never sold ANY kind of ad, period.
I really think it’ll sort itself out and you’ll be back to a six or seven at the next PR export.
Cheers.
brem
October 25th, 2007 12:49 am
When you think of it, it is kind of scary how Google is totally free to make or break anybody’s business.
Way too much power in so few hands IMO. :)
Jorge Lesmes
October 25th, 2007 1:01 am
Digg Favorites Slapped By Google. It seems something big is going on…
James
October 25th, 2007 1:06 am
Brem said: *When you think of it, it is kind of scary how Google is totally free to make or break anybody’s business.*
The raw truth is that *if* one chooses to base an online business on revenue from Google ads, one is at the mercy of Google. You are the one who made the choice, and you succeed or fail as a result – no different than in any other advertising-based business.
I think the question bloggers should be asking is: “Does my blog add real value to the Internet, or am I merely aggregating interesting things I’ve read elsewhere?” A frightening number of blog fall into that category, including Engadget and most of the high-profile tech blogs. The end result is that those sites often have archive that are of dubious value – thousands of “OMG, the iPhone is here!” posts, and repetetive “Hey! Check out this Darth Vader maske made out of fig newtons!” posts that don’t age well.
Jim Kukral
October 25th, 2007 1:30 am
Would you buy a text link ad if it had a nofollow hard coded in it? That’s the question.
No offense to the guys at TLA, but how is your current model going to survive if the rumors are true?
Chris Jacobson
October 25th, 2007 1:36 am
That’s weird. There’s definitely something going on at Google. My site is still at a PR1. As long as it doesn’t get any lower, I’m happy.
Technobuzz.net
October 25th, 2007 1:46 am
I dropped from 4 to 3
AdvertiseSpace
October 25th, 2007 1:58 am
Hopefully this will finally show everyone that you can’t rely on a Google PR to determine the value of a site, how good it is, or how much traffic it gets.
Mike
October 25th, 2007 2:29 am
I think it’s as much to do with Google realising that they created a monster and wanting to destroy it as it is paid links/excessive linking.
Jim Krukal makes a valid point regarding TLA’s business model. I’ve asked Patrick in the past to clarify where they stand on this but, alas, to no avail.
Wendy Piersall
October 25th, 2007 2:53 am
I have to say, Darren, that to drop your blog down in PR is probably the best example of a company biting off their nose to spite their face I have ever seen.
As far as I can tell, you have always done exactly what Google has told us to do – provide valuable content in a targeted niche.
I realize they are sending a message that PR is moving towards irrelevancy. But including ProBlogger & DPS in this “message” is probably about as irrelevant a move as you can get.
In the end, I think they will have truly hurt their cause by hitting ProBlogger. You have always focused on giving back to the community – and now you are penalized for it.
Some “message”.
Hagrin
October 25th, 2007 2:57 am
PR is an outdated figment of everyone’s imagination. By the time you see your “new” PR, it’s 3-4 months old. The mechanics of PR have been gone over in exhaustive detail by Matt Cutts numerous times.
PR is, funny enough, a PR term (where the latter stands for Public Relations). For all of you getting in a frenzy about your dropping PR, check your server logs and your SERP positions to see if there have been any changes – those are the only real factors that matter here.
The conspiracy theories here are terrific reading though – no AdSense, selling TLA, etc. When in doubt, go back to the hard metrics of your site – uniques, pageviews, server load, ad clicks, conversions, etc. If you’re worried about a number that Google has told you time and time again is a factor you shouldn’t be paying too much attention to, you aren’t administering your site the right way.
Cigar Jack
October 25th, 2007 3:05 am
I dropped from a 4 to a 2 in PR. Reasons I think this may have happened.
1) The hit ProBlogger took: I had many inbound links from the Group Writing Project you did a few months ago. If all those blogs took a hit, obviously that is going to drag me down.
2) Netscape changing to Propeller. I had quite a few stories submitted to this service. I wonder if that change hurt my PR some.
3) I had a “Buy Links” link to Text Link Ads on my site. All my direct sponsors are text links purchased directly from me also.
Primarily I think my drop in PR comes from 1 & 2, but I removed my link to TLA for now, but kept the paid links from them up. So far my Search results haven’t dropped.
Steve Broadleigh
October 25th, 2007 3:07 am
Yep, one of my sites dropped from a PR7 (been that for at least two years) to a PR6 last week and then this week I find it’s a PR4. It’s had text links on there for years even from the time it went from a PR6 to a PR7…very curious
sb
Cigar Jack
October 25th, 2007 3:07 am
I also turned “No Follow” Back on in my comments to see if this makes a difference.
Fran6
October 25th, 2007 3:13 am
My PR went down from 5 to 4 last week and to 3 today. As someone said before, it does not affect old posts that brings a lot of trafic, even if I saw a small drop in some positions, but it could affect new posts…
Anne Helmond
October 25th, 2007 3:24 am
I’m a stable PR4. No ads, but I did receive more inlinks.
Sockmoney
October 25th, 2007 3:28 am
Wow… scary to see such big changes across the board. Visible page rank changes are just a sign of things of the past. So did anyone notice any traffic drops from G a few months ago? That would/might correlate to the new published PR you see today.
Caribbean Web Development
October 25th, 2007 4:03 am
any word on new sites getting a pagerank for the first time?
Thilak
October 25th, 2007 4:11 am
I wish Google had introduced some clear-cut was to deduct paid links for our pages. This could easily be added to Webmaster Tools.
Instead of penalizing us, they could just compile a list of paid links and remove it from their index or perhaps, penalize them instead of us.
Deepak
October 25th, 2007 4:14 am
Still at PR5 here, as I have been for a while.
Jeff
October 25th, 2007 4:15 am
My main blog is holding steady at 5, no paid links but does have Adsense. I have another blog, new this year, still with a PR 0 but ranks on the 1st page of Google SERP on specific terms in the niche but I guess that’s because it’s a topic with a narrow focus and few sites.
Shane
October 25th, 2007 4:25 am
Darren, it has been a long time for me to post a comment. But I wanted to say it might have something to do with DMOZ. They may be devaluing it. Almost all the sites that I looked at that have dropped were in DMOZ. My site cellounge did not drop at all and I am not in DMOZ.
This is just a theory, what do you think?
John Lockwood
October 25th, 2007 4:35 am
Shane,
I have a site in DMOZ that hasn’t changed.
Jeremy Steele
October 25th, 2007 4:35 am
Still stuck at PR 3, but my search traffic has surged lately.
Blog Bloke
October 25th, 2007 4:51 am
I’m back at 5 last time I checked but I used to be a 7 as well. Follow the bouncing ball… you can read my comments here: Where is the Consistency in Google’s Pagerank?
Wendy Piersall
October 25th, 2007 4:59 am
Carribean WEb Development – Interestingly, I have two other blogs that have been around for quite a while, yet still show a PR of 0. In fact, one of them is my Entrepreneur.com blog that has a predicted PR of 5, yet still hasn’t been updated.
Makes me wonder if this “update” isn’t quite over yet and that there is more carnage to come.
google.is.evil
October 25th, 2007 5:08 am
What’s wrong with paid links anyway?
it is your blog/website, you should be able to do whatever you want. If you want to bestow attention on another site via a link that should be your right. That’s what advertising is all about.
Other companies buy product placement & product mentions in other forms of media all the time:
-movies sell attention via product placement
-video games do it now with in-game advetising
- sport stadiums have banners & company names plasterd all over the place
the list does on an on
Google just wants to be an Evil Mafia and hoard all the ad dollars to itself.
Bill
October 25th, 2007 5:13 am
Well It seems that you are up Darren, according to my Google Toolbar you are up to an 8 – That is fantastic for a one person site!
Ades
October 25th, 2007 5:13 am
lost my PR7… but have a brand new PR5 ;)
Etienne Teo
October 25th, 2007 5:23 am
I am on Pagerank 0 , i guess i will be page rank -2 then…
whydowork
October 25th, 2007 5:47 am
We’ve seen our PR slide from a 7 to a 6 to now a 5 .
Any ideas on whether or not everyone is being adjusted? – In that case I don’t really care because it just means the scale of “what it takes” to be a specific value has changed, and everyone is being repositioned with a lower score
** So really nothing has changed at all ***
Anyone have pagerank go up?
Chris
October 25th, 2007 5:57 am
Someone mentioned Adsense channel reporting being messed up. I’ve noticed that in my reports are also somewhat strange as well. The channel stats (all of my ads are channelized) don’t match up with the overall stats.
Nick
October 25th, 2007 5:58 am
What’s the big deal with PageRank, anyway? To me, it’s just hot air.
http://www.learnhow2earn.com/2007/10/24/pagerank-and-hot-air/
-Nick
SEO Expert Blog
October 25th, 2007 6:20 am
I guess they are mad at you because you dropped AdSense. Hope that others follow your example.
Mohan
October 25th, 2007 6:21 am
Google’s been playing with PR… They’ve hit all people selling links, doing paid posts, and promoting SEO.
No idea why they did it to those sites promoting SEO, but its a fact….
Carleenp
October 25th, 2007 6:32 am
Well, to throw out some things that go against various theories so far: I am a member of several networks of beauty and fashion product blogs with quite a bit of linking among members, including Splendicity from B5 Media. A number of blogs in them use text link ads or have sponsored links from shoppings sites. Sampling among them,I haven’t noticed that any member blogs lost page rank and a few possibly went up.
One thought is that in the shopping context, perhaps sponsored links from online stores and more outgoing links in general are penalized less because that would be expected of a shopping oriented site? I think in the case of many of the beauty blogs, the link ads really are more aimed at traffic for the store that bought the link instead of trying to increase their own page rank. Just a theory.
Another thought is that we were all around PR4 previously, and that seems to be the new medium rank across sites anyway.So perhaps there just was no need to change us.
I also noticed that I seem to have acquired a low page rank on some of my more popular individual post pages that did not have a rank before that I was aware of.
I have another site that still is PR 0 though. I thought maybe it would get a rank. But not yet.
Max Powers at http://ConsumerFight.com
October 25th, 2007 6:42 am
I have decided that “G” is not going to determine how I run my site. I think “G” page rank is creating problems by forcing everyone to try to figure out how to manipulate their sites to get a higher “G” page rank.
I fear the “G” giant will somehow hold back my site if I write a post criticising them. I don’t even like to use their name.
Am I crazy to think relevant content and the amount of returning visitors is a better gauge to measure a sites rating?
I’m new at this so It’s very possible I have no idea what I’m talking about.
BlogsTheme.com
October 25th, 2007 6:47 am
I have a website that is 4 years old, and has a PR4, and it gets 0 traffic from google. And I have a 3 weeks old website that is pr0 and it gets around 60-70 visitors/day from google.
So page rank doesnt matter anymore. There are other factors that become more and more important.
Sockmoney
October 25th, 2007 6:53 am
Well if they hit all the same “type” of sites across the board, then it really doesn’t matter… Now if they left your competition at a PR 7 while you dropped to a PR 4… that might be worth getting upset about…
Deb
October 25th, 2007 7:35 am
Maybe I am totally clueless or cynical or both, but the only thing I see common is that every blog is talking about Google and there are a whole lot more interesting topics; pagerank or no.
Skitzzo
October 25th, 2007 7:59 am
Darren, and anyone else that lost PageRank today, have we got a cartoon for you!
Lorena “Cutts” Bobbitt
Mikey
October 25th, 2007 8:18 am
Yes Google are playing with many bloggers page ranks, see this article by Techcrunch.com http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/24/google-declares-jihad-on-blog-link-farms/ also visit us at http://www.WhichWebsite.com
fivecentnickel.com
October 25th, 2007 8:20 am
Someone may already have pointed this out, but ProBlogger is coming up as 6 in my toolbar…
Armannd
October 25th, 2007 8:42 am
At the moment, I’m 90% certain that none of the big blogs have been penalized. It’s just that the sites linking to them have been largely devalued.
Blogs like problogger get their popularity from tons of other small blogs who are quite likely being penalized. And now that the algorithm has been changed and all those small blog links have lost their juice, the popular blogging niche sites are losing PageRank as a byproduct.
Real, sad, unavoidable. Well, life goes on and so does our blogging journey!
Jeremy Steele
October 25th, 2007 9:06 am
fivecentnickel – check here – http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank-dc.html
That checks multiple datacenters. Some haven’t changed yet – but most have.
Googlelady
October 25th, 2007 9:09 am
Hey Darren,
Do you really care about Pagerank? Or do you care more about how your articles is indexed and ranked by google with certain keywords, pagerank don’t have to do anything with ranking and being indexed by Google.
I wrote a recent article on how to prevent all those issues for those bloggers that are worried about their pagerank:
http://www.googlelady.com/453/seo-wordpress-blogs/
Check what Google suggest to put under “sponsors” …
Living Off Dividends
October 25th, 2007 9:12 am
I think any domain with the word blog in it is being targeted!
Mike
October 25th, 2007 10:01 am
To the commenter who earlier said that Google doesn’t like TLA – well that’s partly true. They don’t like people using TLA because, invariably, they drop AdSense in favour of the more profitable option. Big G have dropped them out of the search results for the term “text link ads” but they’re more than happy to accept the TLA AdWords advertising budget.
I wonder what will happen when I enter “hypocrites” into Google…
Pete
October 25th, 2007 10:14 am
I have been PR unassigned and waiting since FEB! ARGG Have been submitting articles and to free directories to get backlinks but it seem google overlooked 2 of my site AGAIN!
Carlo Selorio
October 25th, 2007 10:21 am
I wonder if google will ever let everyone know why they dropped all the influential bloggers pagerank. It would be great to hear their side of the story.
SEO Blog
October 25th, 2007 10:26 am
Darren,
It is not if you were selling links or not, you have incentive your visitors to link to your site by giving them prices. Most of the backlinks problogger has managed to gain in the last few weeks are thanks to contest and not to quality content (thats what I think). Now, gaining backlinks that way would not be the same as buying or selling links to trick Google’s algorithm?
Just my opinion.
Teli Adlam
October 25th, 2007 10:26 am
Sorry to hear that ProBlogger took a PR blow — news is floating through Twitter that it has something to do with the link structure of b5media in general.
As for my PageRank, it dropped from a PR7 in the last update to a PR6 and it seems to be holding steady about there. Traffic, however, has not been adversely affected so I haven’t been too concerned about it.
The time to start worrying is when you start seeing your traffic or income slipping as a result. Otherwise, continue dazzling us all with your wonderful knowledge and content, Darren. :)
~ Teli
Mahesh
October 25th, 2007 11:01 am
i think they have changed their algorithm……
Gabriel Goldenberg
October 25th, 2007 12:05 pm
Two possible ideas, Darren:
1) You’re still a TLA affiliate. I think Google want to make a point about text link selling. You’ll notice TLA was hit hard not too long ago to the point they had to transfer most of their activities to other domains. I saw them using buytextlinkads.com or something like that recently in AdWords. Text-Link-Ads.com no longer ranks for its own name, just like the dozens of directories that were also hit recently in Google’s ongoing war against paid links.
2) On a related note to “1″, your top 20 SEO tips for beginners advises(d?) buying links. I tried finding the link in your search box but couldn’t. I’d say that bears consideration as well.
3) See comments: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/24/problogger-pagerank-4/#comment-1925482
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/24/problogger-pagerank-4/#comment-1925423
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/24/problogger-pagerank-4/#comment-1923949
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/24/problogger-pagerank-4/#comment-1923978
4) This might trigger something in the algo: 12 weeks to paid content…
andres
October 25th, 2007 12:13 pm
haha
An advice for larry and sergey http://www.articler.com/blog/google-pagerank-downgrades/
Overclock
October 25th, 2007 1:52 pm
Now my blog is better rank..lol
Lincoln
October 25th, 2007 2:11 pm
Google must have seen this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vt-5oEWK0E
The endorsement Darren made of Text Link Ads without bothering to warn us of the dangers of being penalized by Google for using such a service never sat right with me.
Crystal
October 25th, 2007 2:30 pm
The fact that you were affiliated with text-link-ads should not penalize you in Google. If you dropped out of the search results for blogging keywords Google would be doing their users an injustice, because they know you have the most relevant blog, whether or not you’re affiliated with TLA. This goes for many other blogs and sites, especially ones that get banned. If you can’t find a site by looking for it by name than Google’s not doing its job.
Andrayogi
October 25th, 2007 3:18 pm
I thought it was just a joke after I read the article at http://surayblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/google-pagerank-2nd-update-in-october.html that mentioned about your blog has been penalized by Google. I just don’t believe it, the Google had taken those action to many websites.
Friedbeef
October 25th, 2007 4:00 pm
I’ve been hit too… dropped from 5 to 4
thebusinessofsoftware.net
October 25th, 2007 4:19 pm
Because the problogger brand is now so well known it mightn’t matter. I see the term problogger practically everywhere I go.
John Evans (Syntagma)
October 25th, 2007 7:56 pm
Danny Sullivan has cleared this up definitively : “I pinged Google, and they confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links. … Google stressed, by the way, that the current set of PageRank decreases is not assigned completely automatically; the majority of these decreases happened after a human review.”
Worse, advertisers do look at the PageRank of sites before buying space. Small commercial businesses with no special arrangement with Google are going to be hit hard by this, especially on sites with fewer than 100k PVs a month.
No more Mr Nice Guy. There’s a new shark in the water. Watch out!
Computer Guru
October 25th, 2007 8:55 pm
We don’t sell paid links on either our blog or forum, though the former does have a link to our webhost who gives us free hosting.
Yesterday we were PR5 on both, today they’re both down to 3 – though our Alexa has gone up as of this morning….
I think Google has made a huge mistake and it’s going to bite them in the ass at the end of the day.
Wakish
October 25th, 2007 9:05 pm
That’s one of the reasons TLA has vamped all his referrals links..affiliates are urged to use their new affiliate links; “tinyurl-ing” all their referral links..
The industry is getting bigger and bigger each day, that’s the result of such changes.. (perhaps this is just a start of a more deeper impact?)
- Wakish -
John
October 26th, 2007 1:42 am
What if you rent a link on a driving training blog for a driving school for 25.00 a month will this be seen a paid or an out bound link that has no monetary feel to it. like in blog roll links only You collect money monthly off line for hosting that link.
Will this work with the new Google guild lines?
sam kerm
October 26th, 2007 1:50 am
Here are some Good news :
I just checked Problogger and Copybloggers – They both still have a Pagerank of 6.I used seochat to check google data centres.
The initial drop in Pagerank is probably due to googledance and google updating database
- Sam Kern
Anthony Lawrence
October 26th, 2007 3:19 am
OK, I dropped from a 6 to a 3.
Has anyone considerec that maybe Google is just readjusting PR to give the higher ranks to the truly important? Maybe 3 is the new 6 and so on?
Regardless: I sell text lings and banner ads. I see no moral
distinction between those paid ads and Google paid ads and I’m not about to halve my income because Google doesn’t
agree.. if that even is the true story.
Fran6
October 26th, 2007 3:27 am
Do you think that making the blog clean and ask Google for reconsideration could change something ?? Maybe a naive question… ;-)
Rhys
October 26th, 2007 6:12 am
I’m going to blog about this tomorrow :)
John
October 26th, 2007 6:51 am
I’m still at PR5 and I sell links. I left off my link just in case someone is watching. ;)
webduck
October 26th, 2007 7:57 am
My Pentimento blog was a PR 4 until a couple weeks ago. Now it is a 3. This is the blog I mainly use to write for PayPerPost and by changing my PR it means that I am offered less opps and lower paying opps than before. Essentially, taking money out of my pocket. Now, if PPP would stop using Google as their guide to good blogs that would be helpful. ;)
Hey folks, it is all about GREED on the part of Google. Cutting out the competition ‘because they can’. What really got me is that now Google has a place where people can “report” you for selling text linked ads. Now we have the Google Gestapo?
Janeth
October 26th, 2007 8:00 am
I wish Google would get rid of the whole PR thing. They have not been doing a very good job of keeping it updated in a long time.
Thilo
October 26th, 2007 9:58 am
Let’s hope Google is changing that soon
sagun
October 26th, 2007 11:37 am
Page rank no prob….. who cares……..
Linux operating System
October 26th, 2007 3:28 pm
Is this like a new PR order? maybe to many sites getting too high PR, so now everybody is like “starting again”?.
Malcolm Lambe
October 26th, 2007 7:23 pm
Darren, I don’t understand how Google figure this (Larry)PageRank. Some of the crappiest cookie-cutter sites around have ranks of 4 or 5. When you check their links you find they’re mostly coming from one or two sources. And yet Google gives them a PageRank? As for the Search Engine rankings, they are often a complete joke. Have a look at “Affiliate Elite” in your Google browser. See who’s at the top? Not Brad Callen’s own affiliateelite.com but a graphic designer from Greece with the URL affiliateelite.org (and why Callen didn’t secure that has got me beat). The site is 4 months old, no PageRank and has a lousy 42 links – from 2 or 3 sites with PR3-5.
Work that one out. Callen’s affiliateelite.com only made it to the front page this week – at #6 or #7.
So I dunno…it doesn’t make any sense at all to take you from PR7 to PR4. Maybe you should ask Matt Cutts on his blog WTF is going on?
More on this here Who’s on First?
John Place
October 27th, 2007 4:00 am
My site’s been up for 6 months with very good traffic (120K visitors during one particular month) and Google still hasn’t gotten around to ranking it. Seems to me that a lot of Google products, including pageRank, spend a lot of time being broken. I just wonder if they’ve diversified beyond the point of manageability.
David Hopkins
October 27th, 2007 8:38 am
If you check your PR on multiple data centers, you will find that you still have a PR 6 on some data centers. How long will that last though?
Check this out: http://www.joostdevalk.nl/i-requested-reconsideration-and-got-my-pagerank-back/
Anmol Mehta | Mastery of Meditation
October 27th, 2007 12:07 pm
For those asking about sites that went up in PR. My site http://www.anmolmehta.com went from PR2 to PR4. Perhaps the adjustments have to do with the growth in the number of sites in particular niches? Seems like sites in popular Blogging categories were the one’s that took most hits. My site is on Yoga & Meditation which is not a very common Blog topic.
I see that Problogger is back up to 6, which is where a great site like this belongs :-)
john - from fat to fit
October 27th, 2007 12:35 pm
Yep, mine went from 0 to 4 so I am happy
www.HotelsAndTravel.org
October 29th, 2007 12:20 am
So I’m not alone after all. I took a dip from 3 to 1 despite doing all I can to promote my blog. What a bummer!
MarketingTraffic
October 29th, 2007 11:17 pm
Oh.. it’s sad.
———–
http://marketingtraffic.blogspot.com
Dave
October 30th, 2007 1:42 am
My whole subdomain went from 3 and 4 to PR0, and my subdomain contains various independent sites that perform different functions: blogs, directories, etc.
Maybe Google is fouled up, and some of my pageranks may change again very soon. For example, when I query a variety of Google datacenters using http://www.digpagerank.com, I get many PR0s and a few PR2s. My site was a PR3, so maybe PR2 will be where it ends up for the time being.
I do not see how selling text links is such a crime. Big guys like the New York Times and USA Today sell advertising to the highest bidders — period. For them, advertising revenue is the deciding factor, not relevance, not Google, not Matt Cutt’s stupid blog. Google is just an upstart compared to the New York Times and the Washington Post, etc., and I’m sure they just ignore Google’s petty shenanigans and just invest in Google stock. (After all Google is quite willing to accept revenue from the big guys — and from all the guys it penalizes, that is, from those small, “bad”, independent webmasters who buy and sell links.)
Dave
October 30th, 2007 1:51 am
P.S. Selling links is a lot more profitable, sustainable, and dependable, than Google Adsense and Google Referrals, especially when Google mucks around with pageranks.
Also, my site is about web hosting, advertising, affiliate networks, referrrals, and making money. Almost any link is relevant, but Google (or it’s pagerank algorithm) is not smart enough to realize that fact.
After putting in a lot of hours on my sites, and then finding that they go up and down in Google’s search results over a period of a year or more, I generally just ignore Google and trust that links and newsletters will bring me traffic.
John
October 30th, 2007 2:24 am
Yes but how can you sell links if you show no rank?
Dave
October 30th, 2007 5:30 am
I have not seen an official from Google warning re. paid links, so I continue to give Google the benefit of the doubt and I continue to ignore Google pagerank and I continue to buy Google stock/shares.
Jim Kukral
October 30th, 2007 5:33 am
@Dave, here’s a confirmation from Google confirming it.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/matt-cutts-confirms-paid-links-google-pagerank-update/5906/
Dave
October 30th, 2007 5:37 am
I mean if Google wants to give all the sites under my subdomain ledbetter.freepgs.com PR0 because of a few paid links or because of affiliate/referral links, I will just cut my losses, quit working on those sites, and create new sites/domains. I mean the Internet does not pay the small guy that well to begin with. I have better things to do with my time than to worry about all the changes going on in SEO and pagerank.
Dave
October 30th, 2007 5:56 am
Here is a good response to it all: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/matt-cutts-confirms-paid-links-google-pagerank-update/5906/#comment-694491
John
October 30th, 2007 6:02 am
I said a few days ago that I was still at PR5 with paid links. Not today. I finally got the hit to PR4.
This is going to wreck havoc with TLA.
Confused
October 30th, 2007 9:03 pm
Well, it seems to be across the board on majority of sites. I watch our rank monthly and record the positions (twice this month due to the changes going on) and found the following. Some went up, some stayed the same and many went down. I don’t know what to make of any of it.
We recently performed free directory submissions on each of these sites to approx 150 directorys (yes yes I know…). It worked like a charm in the first set of october results and now…well lets just say I’m not so sure.
PR Aug PR SEPT 25-Oct 30-Oct
1 1 1 3 – Standard Site
0 0 0 3 – Standard Site
4 4 4 4 – Directory
0 0 4 0 – Standard Site
1 3 3 3 – Standard Site
0 2 2 3 – Standard Site
0 2 2 3 – Standard Site
0 4 4 0 – Standard Site
1 3 3 3 – Standard Site
0 4 4 1 – Standard Site
0 0 2 1 – Standard Site
0 0 4 0 – Standard Site
6 6 6 5 – Directory
Our results don’t seem to be suffering in any way, I guess the question is now whether to do any damage control or just wait and see what happens.
Wiadomości
October 30th, 2007 10:13 pm
Many sites dropped their PR. Google’s algorithm is working
David Chin
October 31st, 2007 3:00 am
Well Darren, it looks like Problogger is now back at 6/10 – congratulations!
Jim
October 31st, 2007 6:09 pm
Pagerank is useless it always has been I still cannot believe some people still get hung up on it at one time it served a purpose but not really not much anymore.
I see everywhere domains with a pagerank of 1 beating the pants off sites with a pagerank of 5 and even 6!
And as far as selling links go who does Google think they are telling people what they are allowed to put on their website?
These days all pagerank will really do for you is get your site spidered more often thats really about it but it sure made a lot of people rich telling people thay had to have a high pagerank and showing them how to do it.
If anyone has noticed Google is slipping a little in the search engine wars and this will continue since they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars snapping up other companys left and right.
Remember folks Google IS NOT THE GOD OF THE INTERNET but they act like it.
Jim
David
November 2nd, 2007 9:29 am
Several sites that I read like this one have gone from 6-7 to a PR4 or 3. I can’t figure out what is going on.
Luckally, it has gone better for me as I have an un-released site (codexplorer.com) that just went from 0 to PR4 without ANY content on the site or links to it?!!!
What is going on…?
Tom Koziol
November 3rd, 2007 1:54 pm
I was told by my partner this was nothing more than another google slap and would pass just like the past google slaps. i could be wrong but unless google tells us, how do we know for sure?
Tom Koziol
Executive Blogger
http://smartmoneyconnection.com
Forrest Gumpy
November 7th, 2007 4:11 pm
unbelievable change in my page rank for the positive. my shit blog no one used to visit but thanks to this change in page rank i am getting visitors now. thanks google.
http://lethaljokes.blogspot.com
egghead
November 8th, 2007 2:30 pm
My blog’s PR going up from 0 to 5 this Monday, but my SERP is dropped to almost zero.
Since Tuesday, google sent no visitor to my blog.
Well… there are some visitor coming from images.google.com tough.
is there any relation beween PR up and SERP down ?
Lucynda Riley
November 9th, 2007 8:19 am
I am really hoping Google has changed something and its going to take time for things to adjust. At the moment its not just people selling paid links that have been hit, its everyone and lots of people are really really pissed off. There jerking down there Google adsense adds and screaming boycott(not that it would do much good). For some people Pr doesn’t matter but unfortunately advertisers put a lot of stock into Pr and it affects what you get paid for links. I’ve gone from getting paid really well for links across my 11 sites to making as much as my old desk job used to pay and having to work just as hard. In the mean time I’m going to keep my fingers crossed.
Wendy
November 10th, 2007 10:16 am
If a wonderful site like ProBlogger is being knocked down, I would say something is wrong within Google’s rating system. Especially concidering you’re not selling any links. Doesn’t fit with the theory that this is the reason so many of us are losing PR.
I’ve had 3 blogs knocked down and 1 increase in PR. The one that increased virtually has no audience yet. Of the other 3, 1 gets a lot of traffic and I don’t sponsor any posts from it at all. The other 2 are heavy with sponsored posts, but I get ok traffic. So, who knows what’s going on here.
In any case, whatever Google is doing, I guess we all have something to talk about. I for one have decided to follow this, but not change my blogging habits at all, except to work even harder on generating quality posts and making as much money as I possibly can in the process. Google doesn’t scare me!
Wendy
Healthcare Recruiters
November 15th, 2007 8:03 am
With the PR rules for google now changed the whole paradigm is in the process of shifting. Everyone concerned about rankings is trying to figure out: What exactly is the best approach to gain maximum top PR exposure? Recent changes are forcing blogs and other websites to now rethink exactly what needs to be done strategically to gain PR and more importantly, if you currently have a high PR, how do you hold on to what you’ve achieved? Time to listen to the experts.
dt
November 19th, 2007 12:09 pm
Well It seems this no long applies as your PR has gone back to 6. It almost seems that you had to make some noise and google would then bring your PR back.
I myself have been hit from PR 5 ro PR 3. The strange thing is that I dont make a lot from my site, just enough to actually pay the server bills and site design.
At the end of the day is a toss up, follow inline with Google and the site goes down, or take the PR hit like a man and keep rolling.
Thanks anyway for your pointers.
Josh
November 26th, 2007 6:01 am
I think google’s systems is being hacked by your competitor. They try to lower everyone’s pagerank. LOL!
Hey! This is nuts! What the hell Google is? This is unfair! May be you should make a campaign to fight google back.
Scooter
November 26th, 2007 12:29 pm
Something happened to our site, GadgetGrid.com, today. Our goggle hits are down about over half. Keywords that brought in hundreds of page hits just disappeared? Our new posts seem ok, but any older then the Nov 24rd will not even come up when you google search (image search is still working fine). This is killing us at the most profitable time of year! Thanks Google!
We haven’t changed a thing, so I would assume Google has?
Any ideas?
Scooter
http://www.gadgetgrid.com
Jing
January 10th, 2008 1:30 am
It’s absurd that Google would penalize people for the manipulation of the page rank system. In the first place, this won’t happen if they did not put too much prime on page rank. There will always be enterprising people who will make an opportunity out of other people’s needs. I for one would love to have a page rank so I may qualify for paid blogging, and if there’s an affordable and quick solution, it will definitely be welcome.
I love your site. Very informative for newbies like me :)
Cheers!
Jing.
http://www.myfabuniverse.com
James Burt
January 13th, 2008 5:04 am
Looks like justice have been done to your blog, it was updated to PR 6 in this update. Great work!
Regards,
James Burt
http://www.nhse.org
Jason Fox
January 18th, 2008 5:41 am
Just noticed that my page rank has dropped from 6 to 4 :(
Jason Fox
http://www.swisswatchboutique.com
Khayte
January 27th, 2008 7:30 pm
Gawd, mine had gone to N/A too, I hate the fact that they have to reduce our PR’s just because we monetize our blogs. What’s the catch anyway? They do the same thing, too I guess on their ‘other’ websites perhaps. Damnn, it makes me go all crazy. –,
Stroller Chloe
February 4th, 2008 8:47 am
This is exactly the same as Pay Per Post.
Google is stopping other methods of people advertising their website, forcing people to spend huge amounts of money on their adwords system, which is completly and utterly flawed in that more people = higher bids, but not nessesaraly more traffic !!
Wayne
February 28th, 2008 12:29 pm
Hmm, here’s a passing thought from someone that is just learning the makeup of PageRank. PageRank is an Al-Gore-Rhythm right/wrong? (sorry, compensating for spelling) In any case, I’m guessing that the pagerank number is defined by applications that run either on demand as needed or scheduled as a regular event. These could call other apps in the process. And, they don’t necessarily need to be run sequentially either.
I would suspect that the process of calculating PageRank is done by a slew of specialized applications (niche in their own right) that run to create a single numeric output for a given page. If true, this means that one change to anything in the middle could potentially change the pagerank.
Pure speculation of course, but this might explain why the change was so dramatic. If what you say is all that you changed, seems very odd to me.
Could just be a monkey in the server room or behind the keyboard. Perhaps. Cheers!
Eko
March 1st, 2008 6:56 am
I just got shock today that my PR4 blog has experienced a free fall to PR 0.
What’s wrong with google anyway?
Is this kind of rankin parameter truly works out there?
realvisionhomes
March 1st, 2008 7:40 am
Just had a dip in PR today. I think PR is over rated ;)
gareng
March 4th, 2008 5:09 pm
My blog’s PR drop from 5 to 4 last week
And today fall to 0 …:(((
Will my PR climb back to 4 or 5 ?
web design
March 14th, 2008 6:15 pm
PR is too much overrated, you should not worry too much about it. Your traffic is still there that’s what counts more
WIne Insider
March 18th, 2008 7:53 am
Does the PR actually have anythingthing to do with actual views or is it just an indicator of popularity?
Wine Insider Wine Reviews
Rachelle
April 5th, 2008 11:54 am
Keep blogging guys, don’t let the PR Bug bites!!
etabligh
April 10th, 2008 7:22 am
problogger this time is pagerank 6
http://www.4weblog.com/multiple-pagerank-checker.php?u=www.problogger.net
Tsu
April 11th, 2008 2:36 am
Man, in four months i got page rank 4
i dont believe it.
Senior
April 23rd, 2008 1:43 am
I wouldn’t judge a site’s clout by it’s PageRank. It may have some effect, but other factors matter more. The following may be of interest.
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
Swing Sets
April 23rd, 2008 1:39 pm
I have heard that selling text links hurts PR also but I have also seen that many directories will not even list your site if it sells links.
saqib
May 7th, 2008 4:30 am
hi my name is saqib i have two backlinks with pr8 but i get pagerank of only 1. my site name is
http://www.saqistation.zxq.net
Ross
May 12th, 2008 7:43 pm
Hello people did a quick search in googles built in Definitions for Page Rank and this is what it said:
Devised by Google, it measures not only how many links point to a website, but the “quality” of the sites providing the links.
By the looks of it PR is gained by backlinks from sites that are relevant to yours inceasing your popularity which in turn increases your keywords ranking in google.
WD Milner
May 18th, 2008 10:59 am
My personal sites – no paid links in sight all dropped, from 4’s to 3’s and even a 2. No rhyme or reason. Oh well.
najeen
June 5th, 2008 5:02 pm
hi dear friends i have a site of downloads, and i have two backlinks on sites of pr 4 and one on pr 5 but i can still get 0 page rank. what is this?
Matthew 'Web Design' Adams
June 10th, 2008 9:31 pm
The pagerank on some of my sites jump about from time to time
Getoninter.net Web Development
June 16th, 2008 6:01 am
Page rank is a very strange thing to get used to unless you read into it. i have found that having a high PR does not always means your going to get the visitors, and lets agree its the visits or hits we need.
SEO Genius
June 17th, 2008 7:25 pm
That could of just been Google doing a little wiggle or a “Google dance” good to see it back at 7 now.
Catherine Ellis - My Marketing
June 24th, 2008 6:27 pm
I have sites that have page rank drops all the time but it doesn’t seem to hurt the amount of traffic.
Lowline Cattle
July 3rd, 2008 1:15 pm
Google PR is confusing, but as long as the traffic count is up, that’s all that matters. Still, it would be nice to have a higher Google PR. Hopefully that will happen fairly soon.
Rachael
July 3rd, 2008 8:44 pm
Does anybody know when google might be doing the next PR update?
Rach x
internet marketing
July 26th, 2008 9:37 pm
My site page rank went from 3 to 2 , what could be reason ?
Gary Lee Goodman
August 25th, 2008 11:36 am
My primary business of search engine submission went from google page rank 2 to google page rank 3 then a couple of months ago it went back down to 2. I don’t know why they did that but it got me upset. I don’t know how many people actually check the google page rank but I am pretty sure that people that use search engine optimization will look at your website for an example and your alexa traffic rank.
Jay Skinner
September 2nd, 2008 1:05 am
It seems that Google is penalizing blogs even if it follows Google standards. I know several people that are complaining that their blogs are now ranking less for no reason. Does anyone has an explanation for this?
Smooth web design
September 5th, 2008 11:32 pm
nice man…mines only a pr 2 but its coming along nicely
istanto
September 13th, 2008 8:22 pm
I doesnt care about pagerank again!! who care?? hit mine to 0 or even minus this is my web so I can put everything I want everything I like to write, who care about you google??
discount cigars
September 19th, 2008 3:13 am
Pagerank isn’t really that important. It’s only a reflection of your PAST. I’ve seen pages go from PR 4 to 1 and also pages go from PR 0 to 4 in one update. It doesn’t really mean anything on your rankings with google.
Hitesh
September 27th, 2008 4:31 pm
Algorithm criteria google had used this time to update the PR does any one know?
My PR had gone down from 4 to 3.
Tom Bro-KAW
September 29th, 2008 1:58 pm
I’ve seen some stability with the PR of our website. We’ve been at a 3 for the longest time and now moved to 4. It’s taken some work. I know a lot of people in the community don’t give PR worth, but it’s nice to see it move in the right direction.
St. George
October 6th, 2008 3:08 am
What influence, if any does the age of a website have on page ranks. Does an older page (like 1998) allow a website to garner a higher PR quicker?
mikerambling
October 10th, 2008 2:06 am
hi,
i am new here and this post really interest me as i wanted to work on the PR of my site. Though i know it takes a lot of hard work, i am sure it will worth it one day.
Eco
October 12th, 2008 2:20 am
It’s totally understandable that google doesn’t want to tell us what makes up a good pr ranking but it would be nice if they offiicially told us all what not to do.
Janice (5 Minutes for Mom)
October 18th, 2008 3:10 am
I wanted to CRY today when I saw our PR6 had dropped to a PR5. We have been a PR 6 for over two years. I NEVER imagined it dropping.
Dr. Ariffaizal
October 22nd, 2008 5:04 pm
My blog drop from PR3 to zero after changing domain name even I’m updating it actively everydays.
eli
October 30th, 2008 11:23 pm
Our website has been a PR5 for probably 8 years, dropped to a PR 4 recently have no idea why. I believe that the higher the PR ranking the more often they spider your site for more content and it gets indexed faster onto google.
MK Tile Saw
November 13th, 2008 2:45 am
Guys, don’t worry about the pagerank. It’s only a reflection of what your PAST performance was and doesn’t mean that your site will be crawled more or less. If you want to be crawled every day then you need new content every day.
adjustable beds
November 13th, 2008 7:06 am
I don’t think that page rank has anything to do with your rankings or traffic. I have seen sites with PR 4 and barely get any traffic…
Acid Cigars
November 14th, 2008 1:44 am
Yea, it doesn’t have anything to do with really ranking because if your site is new and the PR hasn’t updated yet but you have a lot of links you will still rank good. It just depends on the google algorithm, which no one really knows the answer to!
Tempurpedic
November 22nd, 2008 5:31 pm
PR is not related to how many links you have, it is more related to the quality of links you have and so is your rankings ..
Steam Showers
November 26th, 2008 12:43 pm
I have two sites PR 3 & PR 4 . and my PR 3 sites gets 5 times more traffic than the PR 4..
TMS
December 4th, 2008 1:21 am
I beleive there is a honeymoon period for Page Ranking which can diminish over time, caused by a page not being updated regularly.
film izle
January 10th, 2009 11:26 am
What influence, if any does the age of a website have on page ranks. Does an older page (like 1998) allow a website to garner a higher PR quicker?
Tony Novoa
January 16th, 2009 6:43 am
Congratulations to you.
But not to me…… until yesterday i had pr 4 but today pr 0,i have another site and happen the same yesterday pr 3 today 0 ??? does somebody know whats happening ,but affortunatly my visits are ok normally 30.000 uniche visits a day and growing,traffic appears unaffected.
online film
January 18th, 2009 10:49 pm
My blog drop from PR3 to zero after changing domain name even I’m updating it actively everydays.
Free gadgets
January 24th, 2009 2:47 am
Page rank is a funny thing, strange how you lose it so quickly but it takes ages to gain. Thanks for sharing this.
film izle
February 15th, 2009 3:05 am
Algorithm criteria google had used this time to update the PR does any one know?
My PR had gone down from 4 to 3.
Web Design
February 17th, 2009 8:24 pm
I think that having a good pagerank is important. It gives your site more stability, and shows the overall importance of your Web Design. It is definatley not the be all and end all, as there are other ways of getting people to your website, however lets not forget it is a huge contributing factor to represent our web sites performance!
film izle
February 19th, 2009 4:05 am
Man in four months i got page rank 3 i dont believe it )
Acne
February 21st, 2009 3:44 pm
I have just experienced my page dropping out of the top 200 for all my keywords. My site is only 2 month old and some have said that is why, but I am nervous. I don’t think I did anything wrong.
Ardent
February 21st, 2009 3:46 pm
Its sad how much google has control over us. I really wish Live and Yahoo would even things up, but they can never make any progress.
Free Wii
February 24th, 2009 3:58 am
Page rank is so unpredictable, its about as constant as the weather…
Thanks for this, hope your site recovers.
dizi izle
February 25th, 2009 8:08 am
My blog drop from PR3 to zero after changing domain name even I’m updating it actively everydays
yemen
February 25th, 2009 9:17 am
Page rank is a funny thing, strange how you lose it so quickly but it takes ages to gain. Thanks for sharing this.
scales
March 5th, 2009 1:44 pm
Pagerank is overrated. Ignore it. Flat out it’s only a snapshot of how you were doing when google updated last go-round. It’s really not that important.
e-okul
March 12th, 2009 2:57 am
P.S. Selling links is a lot more profitable, sustainable, and dependable, than Google Adsense and Google Referrals, especially when Google mucks around with pageranks.
Also, my site is about web hosting, advertising, affiliate networks, referrrals, and making money. Almost any link is relevant, but Google (or it’s pagerank algorithm) is not smart enough to realize that fact.
bedroom furniture
March 14th, 2009 7:17 pm
a couple of months ago it went back down to 2. I don’t know why they did that but it got me upset. I don’t know how many people actually check the google page rank but I am pretty sure that people that use search engine optimization will look at your website for an example and your alexa traffic rank.
http://www.roomfurniturechina.com
güzel sözler
March 18th, 2009 5:17 am
Page rank is a funny thing, strange how you lose it so quickly but it takes ages to gain. Thanks for sharing this…..
Jane
March 18th, 2009 12:05 pm
Google PR is not the only criteria that determines the worth of your blog. Its true many have lost business because of the PR drop. I now have become a fan of problogger!
Website Design Web Development Company
March 24th, 2009 9:46 pm
I do agree with Jane “Google PR is not the only criteria that determines the worth of your blog”. To get business the SERP is the ultimate thing. not the PR. What if a site has pr 8 and no sale takes place ?
The Top Cigars
March 29th, 2009 10:31 am
There’s no sense in worrying about pagerank. If you’re doing SEO properly your pagerank will be fine.
Everythings4free
April 1st, 2009 7:01 pm
I myself think that its a good idea to penalize those who sell links and those who buy them. Otherwise those companys or people with a lot of money will get the top rank in google. Do you think thats fair? This way the small guy at least has a chance of getting a good rank.
film izle
April 4th, 2009 8:00 am
Google PR is not the only criteria that determines the worth of your blog. Its true many have lost business because of the PR drop. I now have become a fan of problogger!
watch movies
April 7th, 2009 5:21 pm
Its sad how much google has control over us. I really wish Live and Yahoo would even things up, but they can never make any progress.
film izle
April 14th, 2009 9:07 am
myself think that its a good idea to penalize those who sell links and those who buy them. Otherwise those companys or people with a lot of money will get the top rank in google. Do you think thats fair? This way the small guy at least has a chance of getting a good rank
film izle
April 17th, 2009 6:57 am
If google allow paid links its going to be a area where anybody who has money can manupulate google. This is then brings more toruble for google later.
house cleaning
April 20th, 2009 8:20 pm
I think people misunderstand that being controlled by google is not that that bad, They make fair rules. Their is no evidence to suggest that they manipulate the internet. And if you play by the rules you can even make some good money.
JoJo
April 24th, 2009 4:11 am
I am still not sure I really understand the whole page rank thing, but if you want to be on the net you can not ignore google.
film izle
April 26th, 2009 9:40 pm
i think PR is not important. its important to think same google :C
Avik
April 27th, 2009 10:34 pm
Hey Darren,
I am also not into selling/buying links but still my blog pr went down.
Just don’t have a clue of whats happening
regards
Avik
http://www.flash-design-india.com.
Lingerie
April 30th, 2009 9:40 pm
I think people misunderstand that being controlled by google is not that that bad, They make fair rules. Their is no evidence to suggest that they manipulate the internet. And if you play by the rules you can even make some good money.
film izle
May 1st, 2009 9:39 am
It’s good problogger now pr4. They well deserved because they have to much ads on the page.
shelly
May 13th, 2009 3:13 am
I received this ‘present’ from Google about week ago when my PR dropped from 3 to 2, but the best part is that this PageRank drop doesn’t hurt traffic at all.
i hope that i get a good idea form your article.
your article are good
mario oyunları
May 21st, 2009 10:14 pm
I agree with Sam as I don’t worry about the page rank…just don’t have one yet!
Pedya
May 23rd, 2009 11:04 pm
If google allow paid links its going to be a area where anybody who has money can manupulate google. This is then brings more toruble for google later.
onlinecontests
May 28th, 2009 11:41 pm
I have dropped too from 4 to 1, wonder why
Amy Sterling
June 1st, 2009 5:38 am
I noticed I have a PR of 4 today, after 2 and 3 for a long time. As I know of one horrible blog that was never updated more often than once every 3 weeks and would have no reason for any significant general traffic that was PR 5 until recently – it’s monster keyword stuffed and full of other babyish blackhat stuff (they still won’t make it go below 3 and it’s a genuine “0″) – I think it’s all a bunch of hooey.
film izle
June 5th, 2009 12:42 am
Otherwise those companys or people with a lot of money will get the top rank in google. Do you think thats fair? This way the small guy at least has a chance of getting a good rank
Louis Vuitton
June 9th, 2009 10:17 am
If google allow paid links its going to be a area where anybody who has money can manupulate google. This is then brings more toruble for google later
lingeriewholesale
June 10th, 2009 12:04 am
I’ve seen some stability with the PR of our website. We’ve been at a 3 for the longest time and now moved to 4. It’s taken some work.
PinoyDeal
June 10th, 2009 3:28 am
Not bad actually, minde drop to pr 1
izmir temizlik firmaları
June 22nd, 2009 7:37 pm
I dropped from 4 to 3
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