Putting PageRank Into Perspective
Nov 5th, 2007 by Shaun Carter
There has been a significant amount of chatter on the Internet about the recent Google PageRank update and I have been voraciously reading as many posts and theories about it as possible. Everyone seems to have their own opinion about what Google is doing and why, but nobody can argue that the effect was quite chilling and far reaching.
Google has announced very clearly that this update was targeted at websites and blogs that sell links and are thus helping to inflate the PageRank of other, commonly unrelated sites. There is no doubt that the link selling industry was becoming quite a powerhouse on the back of companies like Text Link Ads. But these links were being sold more often to webmasters wanting to build their PageRank through accumulation of many backlinks from high PR pages, rather than simply for getting visitors to their pages. Very often, the links are placed at the bottom of pages and are not very visible to the average viewer and click through rates are terrible - so it’s not hard to see that the link is strictly for PR value.
The other question that comes up is whether PageRank is even relevant at all anymore. For example, the blog you are reading right now has had a PR of ZERO until this update bumped it up to one. However, search engine traffic to this blog is strong and about 50-100 unique visits a day are from Google searches. I also achieved the #1 search position in Google for the term “Shaun Carter” which was previously held by hip hop mogul Jay-Z whose real name is Shawn Carter.
The only people who I think stand to lose from this update are the blogs earning the bulk of their income from link sales which may tend to dry up now that PR is becoming less relevant. The best advice for link buying is to buy prominently placed links that will generate a significant flow of traffic to your own website.
Some great articles about the latest Page Rank update include:
Google PageRank As Good As Dead
Digg Favorites Slapped By Google
Google Attacks Its Competitors With PR Meltdown
Technorati Tags: pagerank, google, paid links, text link ads, shaun carter, john chow, shoemoney, problogger, jay-z, pr update, backlinks, no-follow
