More info on PageRank
Every few months we update the PageRank data that we show in the toolbar, and every few months I see a few repeated questions, so let me take a pass at some of them. Note: I wrote this kinda quickly, so I think this is pretty good, but if I spot something incorrect later, I’ll change it.
Philipp Lenssen asks: “Matt, I often wonder, how is the PageRank value stored internally, is it a floating-point number as many people suggest or is it just the integer value itself due to the heavy recursive PR computations?”
It’s more accurate to think of it as a floating-point number. Certainly our internal PageRank computations have many more degrees of resolution than the 0-10 values shown in the toolbar.
viggen says: “Do i need to know that? What does it tell me when i know it? Why would i care? Meaning, what purpose has the Pagerank for the mom and pop site out there?”
viggen, I think that’s a perfectly healthy attitude. If you don’t care about PageRank and your site is doing well, that’s fine by me. 
Andrew Hunter asks: “Will the data centers using the slightly older infrastructure be updated in due course, or will my PR be split by data center for the next couple of months?”
The latter. I think most data centers are running the newer infrastructure for things like info:, related:, link: and PageRank, and I believe every data center that has that newer infrastructure has the recent snapshot of PageRank now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took at least 1-2 months for the other data center IPs to get the newer infrastructure in some way. (Yes, this is smaller, different infrastructure than the stuff that made site: queries have more accurate results estimates.)
Lots of folks ask questions like: “Is this PageRank from day X or day Y? And it looks like backlinks are from day Z?”
Really, I wouldn’t worry about it–I’m not even sure myself. At some point we take our internal PageRanks, put them on a 0-10 scale, and export them so that they’re visible to Google Toolbar users. If you’re splitting hairs about the exact date that backlinks were taken from, you’re probably suffering from “B.O.” (backlink obsession) and should stop and go do something else for a bit until the backlink obsession passes. I highly recommend keyword analysis, looking at server logs to figure out new content to add, thinking of new hooks to make your site attract more word-of-mouth buzz, pondering how to improve conversion once visitors land on your site, etc.
I’ll do a follow-up. Supplemental Challenged said: “The fact that Google can only create a PR update that is a full quarter behind the times is awfully troubling.”
I believe that I’ve said before that PageRank is computed continuously; there are machines that take inputs to the PageRank algorithm at Google and compute the resulting PageRanks. So at any given time, a url in Google’s system has up-to-date PageRank as a result of running the computation with the inputs to the algorithm. From time-to-time, that internal PageRank value is exported so that it’s visible to Google Toolbar users (see the question below for more details on the timing).
Matt Crouch asks: “Actually, I am just curious why you are bothering telling us about a new PR update…. is this the first time you ever did?”
Well asked, Matt Crouch; I’m not sure if I’ve given the official word on a PageRank export before. It’s not a big event here at Google. Frankly, I didn’t even know we’d done our 3-4 month-ish push of this data. When I saw people talking about it online, I went to check and see whether it was a real push or not. In the past few months, people have noticed when an engineer grabs an obscure data center and tinkers around with things like backlinks or info: queries (e.g. when “Update Pluto” got downgraded because it was just an engineer tinkering at one data center). So I figured I’d let people know that this was a real PageRank export and not just one person doing something.
New Jersey SEO asked: “Will this PR update affect SERPs? Are we going to have also a SERP data refresh / update?”
Great question. By the time you see newer PageRanks in the toolbar, those values have already been incorporated in how we score/rank our search results. So while you may be happy to see that the Google Toolbar shows a little more PageRank for a given page, it’s not as if that causes a change in search results at that point. So you won’t see any search engine result page (SERP) changes as a result of this PageRank export–those changes have been gradually baking in since the last PageRank export.
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Halfdeck Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 12:06 am
Jeez, talk about linkbait
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, Matt.
Robert G. Medford Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 12:11 am
Thanks, Matt.
We’ve all picked up a lot of PageRank info along the way here, but it’s nice to actually hear it from someone inside.
At the risk of pressing my luck, I believe that many of us would like to hear your response to those who say that PageRank is dead.
Arnold Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 12:26 am
Hi, It’s the first time I am on this website and I wonder if I can ask a question here;
the question is:
The pageranks is mainly given regarding the number of good ranked links towards the website. How is it possible that websites with very few links and a far lower rank at Alexa still pop up a lot higher on the Google searchresult?
Regards from Cannes
JohnMu Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 12:34 am
Hi Matt, nice comments
- Do you re-scale pagerank values from time to time? (too many PR9s or PR10s)
- How does link-devaluation play into the PR algorithm?
- Are penalties reflected in PR? How do sites with penalties pass PR?
- What is the reason you’re exporting PR values at all?
ChrisF Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 12:42 am
Ragarding
“it’s not as if that causes a change in search results at that point. So you won’t see any search engine result page (SERP) changes as a result of this PageRank export–those changes have been gradually baking in since the last PageRank export.”
Is this true, i’ve seen large changes with regards to my site from the time Google updated the vissible pagerank?
Kelly Jones Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:20 am
Thanks Matt, truly appreciated.
Can you confirm or deny something? If we’re seeing drastic SERP changes during this time period and you’re saying they’re not related to the PR update, is there some form of push or algo change going on as well?
Or, is this because I finally un-tripped the filter which killed us on August 17th by making MASSIVE changes in my site?
KJ
George Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:22 am
Hi Matt,
I have a question for you. Given the excellent insights you are given into Google does this mark a shift in policy at Google? I thought Google Sitemaps might be the start of a process whereby Google opened up.
Your articles have been very useful and I feel that more transparency will help both Google and responsible webmasters get want they want.
Cheers
George
Andrew Hunter Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:23 am
Thanks Matt.
Great insight and really good of you to take the time to answer the daily barrage of questions!
Cristian Mezei Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:28 am
Ok now that’s a great PR FAQ Matt.
Thanks.
John Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:58 am
Great post Matt. I’ve noticed that page rank and search engine rankings are really not related. Why does page rank exist? What is it’s purpose?
Nikke Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 2:07 am
Like Viggen, I rarely bother too much about PageRank (Mac based webmasters seldom do, since it took us so long to get acccess to these vaues).
But since it is the topic of the with many clients, I’ve had to start keeping an eye on that little white-green bar in the toolbar.
But I have to ask you about one strange fact that I’m observing right now.
How come mattcutts.com/blog/ has a PageRank of 7, when http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ shows a white PR bar?
It seems strange, since you promote the www flavour yourself in the top link (Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO). Is this yet another weird www vs non-www effect?
B-Scan Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 2:12 am
Hi Matt,
I’m just courius, it’s possible that you tell us how many are PR10 sites out there?
For fun only:)
Karl Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 2:29 am
it’s ameliorate but I think also that Pagerank-system up from zip to ten is like to measure the earth with millimeters.
I think to compare a political site with an art site in such a constricted system is nearly impossible.
How can my german startsite be a PR2 and the same part in English PR3 and the german picture gallerie PR2 but the same gallerie in English only PR1?
Please think about specialized searchbots for categories like:
political
commercial
blogg
art
fun
reference
and so on …
and add this to the info in the serps or make the PR-scale
much wider.
JLH Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 2:46 am
Thanks for the post, I’m sure this will be cited often in the forums when people start the weekly PR update thread.
Jan Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 2:57 am
I’d love to see PageRank to be more accurate on highly dynamic websites. ATM it seems PR inheritance is based mostly on URL-depth (delimited by / ) instead of true link-depth. Our mainsite has PR4 while links to dynamic pages from that page usually have PR0 at best. The target-page content is always static we’re just using mod_rewrite to hide highly parameterized URLs.
Dave (Original) Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 3:27 am
Matt, you overlooked my question which was the very 1st one
“But are the toolbar PR values the exact same values as the one Google’s algo uses on a daily basis? ”
Another one, why do Google feed the PR frenzy by showing TBPR? Why not just dump and NEVER let us know about PR?
Greg Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 3:37 am
I’d also like to hear what Google’s rationale is for releasing PageRank. I can imagine it being useful to a someone browsing the web, to look at their toolbar and see the prominence according to Google of the page they’re on. If a blog has a 7 or 8 or 9 I might think, “lots of folks like this guy”. On the other hand, it seems to encourage the wrong kind of SEO which is the opposite of what Google seems to try to do in most other circumstances.
Roger Balmer Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 3:57 am
Hi Matt, thank you for all your answers to questions about PageRank and the Datacenters. Hope this time, my post will not just be deleted…
David Castle Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 4:23 am
Thanks Matt, I always refer people to this http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3518646
Do you agree with it?
Cheers CTABUK
Teodor Filimon Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 4:23 am
Thanks for the info. Nice to know how things work..
Peter (IMC) Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 4:53 am
Well Matt,
Pagerank may be calculated continuously, but there most definitely are parts in the algorithms/spam detection/adsense quality assesment of a site/etc. that use the data which is represented by the toolbar.
There are just too many things changing when Google does a PR update…
I am really curious if you can shed a light on what uses specifically the PR data that is represented by the toolbar.
Hagrin Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 5:11 am
@Dave (Original) -
Actually, he did answer that question. The answer is “sometimes yes, but almost all the time no”.
PR changes much more frequently on the backend driving SERPs, etc. than what the user sees in the Toolbar. The Toolbar PR data just gets pushed every so often to the user. However, the very next day, that data could be out-of-date if Google decides to run datacenter updates, push a new algo, etc., then the PR numbers may change, but Toolbar users will not be aware of those changes until another PR data push to the Toolbar app.
Or I could be talking out my ass.
Search Engines WEB Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 5:12 am
_____________________________________________
http://www.jimwestergren.com/future-pagerank-prediction/
this would be an opportunity to pretest and archve the results of the various PAGERANK PREDICTOR TOOLS - to access which one is consistantly the closest
Colin Crawford Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 5:32 am
Matt,
This is a great service you are doing to give the official nod for a PR update. I am a serious member at DP Forums and we are inundated with a plethora of threads asking if an update is on. We find ourselves repeatedly forwarding members to view the url’s that have a service to check multiple datacenters to find out for themselves. However, the member list at DP keeps growing at an enormous rate that it is hard to keep up with it all.
Thanks again.
Col
Michael Rock Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 6:29 am
Hi Matt,
Sorry about changing the subject, but what’s up with http://www.searchmash.com? Is it a testing ground for the Orion algorithm?
Michael
Ron Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 6:29 am
I think this is probably the best post I’ve read here in quite a while. Thanks for posting about the update and for answering those questions.
Michael Rock Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 6:30 am
I noticed that under the privacy policy that Google lays claim to the web site.
bob rains Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 6:47 am
Matt-
Whooaaa buddy, simmer down if you start answering all of our questions here, I won’t have any need to go to Pubcon in Vegas. If my wife even gets a whiff of their not being a need to go to Vegas this November, I’ll get stuck going to visit family in Missouri. The bad part of Missouri, the very bad part, and the one they don’t tell you about at the tourist information centers.
Seriously
Bob
Cristian Mezei Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 7:14 am
“Search Engines WEB” , there is NO such thing as pagerank prediction tools. You know that right ? And here are the tests to prove that. Part 1 and Part 2.
Multi-Worded Adam Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 8:12 am
I tend to agree with Dave. I’d personally be happier if the PageRank in the toolbar weren’t displayed and it were replaced with an indicator containing of one of three words:
1) Indexed (without penalty, but that’s implied.)
2) Not Indexed
3) Banned
Nice and easy.
Ian Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 8:24 am
Here’s one frequently-asked question that I didn’t see anyone ask in either PageRank-article’s comments.
Is PageRank (as stored internally, I guess), linear, logarithmic, or something else?
(I’ve got a bit of a bias towards it being logarithmic, what with one of my ancestors having invented logarithms :))
shit of paper Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:00 am
At the first begenning I had nerver understand nothing at google, but google understood my website even with a 0 for my pagerank…
Now, I understand all, it’s a kind of magic, years ago, google found millions of gobelins. They use and are very cruel with them to make them work fast. That IS the explaination why the system works!
Conclusion : Don’t spend nights facking meta or farming link or everything else! Google gobelins are everywhere…
A demoniac denonciator Anonyme (all my apologizes for my English)
Matt Cutts Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:08 am
Oy, enough PageRank questions!
My advice is not to obsess about PageRank too much; it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents.
Bob Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:24 am
So how about letting us know what the other 99 factors are so we can stop obsessing about it?
haha
Harith Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:32 am
Matt!
You keep talking about PageRank her on your blog, on forums and webmaster conferences. And now you ask us not to be obsessed about PageRank?
C’mon Matt. Give us a break
ted sullivan Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:43 am
Hi Matt, glad you explained PR and PR Obsession. But the one thing that seems obvious when you look at the datacenters in a short time is that they are not all even similar in the SERP they return for some searches. So there has to be huge difference not just in PR, SITE: but in the actual indexes.
Matt Crouch Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:52 am
So would it be unfair to say that people who work in departments pertaining to Google Search, do not pay attention to what the other departments within Search do? — Quote -”Frankly, I didn’t even know we’d done our 3-4 month-ish push of this data. When I saw people talking about it online, I went to check and see whether it was a real push or not.”
rxbbx Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 10:01 am
Great FAQ.. i always see those topics on DP or WWW opened..
, but “PageRank is computed continuously”, hopefully they saw it now. I like Andrews Hunter question about the splitting. This could be better, but is difficult ofcourse.
Greets
DavidW Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 11:39 am
Thanks for update as the ’site’ and ‘links’ checks have been a bit quirky recently I guessed something was going on. Blogs and furums all have the same conclusion about pagerank - that you should not get obsessed with PR - everybody nods knowingly. Then along comes an update and the forums are full of postings - ‘wow we’ve gone to a PR7′ and ‘oh no were gone back to PR of 3′ - who’s NOT interested in pagerank?!
The problem is that the web is huge and there are very few ( 1? ) ways of assessing the relevance, quality and usefulness of websites. Pagerank tries to convey all of these things in one little green bar. It can’t be done. but its the best (only) measure there is. What we/ the web needs is some more specialised ranking/ ratings tools to measure these things - relevance/ quality/ accessibility/ usefulness etc. At the moment pagerank - ‘measures the importance of this page’ but thats like trying to measure the importance of an individual! How do you even begin to do that - look at their job, money, friends, looks, social actions, friendliness etc it can’t be done in any meaningful way. And remember there are more webpages than there are people on the planet.
So what we need is a portfolio of measurers for different aspects of a webpage - and you could get really creative with the colours too - greens getting a bit boring!!
Saumil Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 12:42 pm
Thanks for this post … will help clear up a lotta myths surrounding the PR debate. I had a single question though .. if 2 different websites get similar backlinks will the PR be always same? I was anxious ‘coz I have seen different results (for PR) with similar promotions.
Jon Goldberg Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:16 pm
OK Matt, thanks for the information re: toolbar pagerank and the toolbar pagerank update. I do have a couple of questions.
1) Is it possible to ‘focus’ pagerank within a site to the pages that I feel are most important by selectively using ‘rel=nofollow’? In other words, I would create two identical looking versions of my TOC and the most heavily linked pages would use the version of the TOC that has ‘rel=nofollow’ to the pages that I want to de-emphasize.
For example, I have a Glassblowing Glossary page on my web site that may be linked to as a general glassblowing resource. I would like to pass the credit for those links primarily to my home page and class information page. So, could I change the TOC on the Glossary page to use the ‘rel=nofollow’ attributes for all links except for the two where I would like to ‘focus’ the pagerank?
2) Can you speak at all about the status of updates from DMOZ to Google Directory? Google’s current image is quite stale, about 10 months old.
Bartek Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:29 pm
Excellent post. Although I don’t dwell on pagerank too much, its good to know some of the questions you’ve answered.
Matt Crouch Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 1:40 pm
Sorry about my previous comment, I read your statement wrong.
James M Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 3:06 pm
Thank you! I’ve got sick of the silly arguments about PageRank over the last x years. How good to have a simple, rational explanation.
Rob Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 4:39 pm
Hi Matt,
Aside from Pagerank Matt - I’d really like to discuss sites that are using, to my knowledge “poor site modificaitons and intruducing a new type of cloaked information” to gain quick ranking in Google’s index. Seems a certain group I found online to be flooding thier site index page (built in frames) none the less, and equipted with poor site information, NO backlink structure (found certain link farms in this research also) and are practicing poor Google ethical guidelined SEO.
What is happening here?
I can’t figure this one out. I consitantly work on the algorythm to meet the needs of Google’s guidelines, using the webmaster toolset, and reports, have a certain volume of quality site backlinks, numerous first position listed terms for researched keywords from server logs and new content creation, creating that valuable site content with unique and expert articles on marketplace information and a well structure for both user, and Serp’s informational structure. with almost 7 years experience and always solid results in my work based on Google guidelines, I hate to see what’s happening here - and am now turning to the Guru.
I’m at a loss here, and when reviewing thier code and site structure (I’m a programmer), the frames, the lack of quality backlinks to relevant site information, poor information, framed toolsets that aren’t even thier using IFRAMES, as well as thier spammed tags for increased HEAD content relevancy, and poor head content, it leads me to believe that sites like this will always triumph over the smaller, yet smarter guys - even though these guys are outsourcing their work to another outside firm.
Any insight here would be helpful on your part. I’d love to figure out why this is happening after having done everything I can do increase relevance, site development and qualtiy information (in fact, our site has the most relevant and quality listed site info available) of any site in the marketplace here.
Very frustrating, considering I love the Google index, and it’s results - but these guys have been up to no good, with no penalization from Google or it’s engineers. I think they found a loophole in the system. It’s the only possible explanation.
As Always - thanks for the great info, and keep up the good work at Google. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime if they ever hire me!!!!!
Regards, Rob
Adam Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 6:46 pm
I don’t get it man…my main page is a PR4 and it appears to be headed to PR0…it all went supplemental after adding forum software…now I went to your site for advice, but your main page is zero right now too ? Which end is needs some fixing, mine or Google’s?
Peter (IMC) Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 6:51 pm
Matt Cutts Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:08 am
Oy, enough PageRank questions! My advice is not to obsess about PageRank too much; it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents.
—————
lol, you don’t get it Matt, PR is mathematical… It´s fun to understand it. But you´re right, being obsessed with it, isn’t the smartest thing to do. Actually, if one should be obsessed with something, it´s anchor texts in links.
(as if you didn’t know that yet, lol)
Dave (Original) Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 6:57 pm
RE: “Oy, enough PageRank questions! My advice is not to obsess about PageRank too much; it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents.”
=========================================
Matt, agree. However, why post about it and show a green bar on the Google toolbar. Google MUST have known by doing that they were feeding what was already a frenzy and obssession on PR. Just look at most SEO forums (not all) and it doesn’t take long to work out there is already obssession on PR and has been since Google rose to fame.
What about Multi-Worded Adam suggestion. That sure would be nice, don’t you agree?
RE: “Actually, he did answer that question. The answer is “sometimes yes, but almost all the time no”.”
=======================================
Thanks, where is that? I cannot find it.
To me that sais, no they are not the same, BUT, by chance they might be at any given time for any given page. Probably more chance of winning Lotto
Jan (Myrtle Beach) Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
Well, the official word is out now…or maybe I hadn’t heard it before.
I am a “cuttlett”.
Jan
Matt, can I be some kind of officer in your fan club?
Dave (Original) Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 7:07 pm
RE: “lol, you don’t get it Matt, PR is mathematical”
==========================================
There is tones of that side of PR on the http://www.
RE: “Actually, if one should be obsessed with something, it´s anchor texts in links.”
======================================
I don’t think any obession is healthy, especially when it comes to SEO.
IMO, the best way to forget about Google and design your site for humans and continually add more content pages. It’s not by chance or coincidence that Google seeks out pages that humans want returned in their SERPs.
Joseph Hunkins Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 7:16 pm
Matt - A great summary as usual. I’m sure these take you some time to pull together but it’s nice to see this level of detail and see that it’s totally consistent with what you’ve said before both here and in person.
Of course if you do too much of this clarification what are all the people over at WMW going to argue about again, and again, and again…and.
Dave (Original) Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
RE: “Of course if you do too much of this clarification what are all the people over at WMW going to argue about again, and again, and again…and.’
==========================================
Anchor Text
Multi-Worded Adam Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
As long as there are stupid topics to argue about, there will always be stupid people to argue about them.
Have faith, Joseph. Idiots will be fighting until time stops marching on.
Jennifer Said,
October 3, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
A very good and detailed explanation on PageRank! Thanks, Matt!
Somehow, I am still lost! I have seen some old corporate websites with little backlinks having a higher PR than newer ecommerce websites with lots of reciprocal links.
Singapore SEO Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 1:42 am
It’s easier said than done when you advise us to “…not to obsess about PageRank too much…”
Because when you’re selling a website or domain name, exchanging links, selling textads, etc. the first question you’re asked is “…what’s your PageRank?”
IMHO the best way to get people’s mind off PageRank is to keep the information internally and remove it from the Google toolbar altogether.
Nikke Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 2:11 am
Since some people has been wondering what I had been smoking yesterday, after leaving my comment on white toobar PR for http://www.mattcutts.com, I had to check back to write that I checked on several different computers yesterday and got the white PR bar on half of them.
However, today Matt’s PR is back on both the non-www and the www-flavour.
Now imagine if this PR glitch had happened to any of the tinfoil hatted PR webmasters suffering not only from B.O. but alsw with PRitis and what-not, who after some years of frantic linkswapping and linkbaiting had managed to achieve a PR of 7…
John Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 2:38 am
Hi Matt,
I’ve been a big reader of your blog for a while now and I must say I do enjoy your blog postings and some of your humour, even if it’s a bit nerdy at times.
PR is one of those things people freak out about and I would like to say that while I understand people are concerned with rankings PR seems to take the brunt of their attention.
My obersvation when it comes to PR is when I consider linking to websites what Google gives the site as a guideline score. If the site is blank or has no page rank I have to consider their content more carefully and more often than not I will move on to another activity.
I appreciate your input on the PR and backlinking issues.
Thanks,
John
Barry Welford Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 5:35 am
I wish Google would be more customer-centric about this and less product-driven, as one popular scale of company excellence goes. If the customers want to know more, as is so very apparent, why not meet their wishes.
All the discussion about the present way of doing it is not really very positive for Google. People are frustrated. Why not roll out the values once a week. That would lower the temperature of all this discussion. This 3-monthly or so update has no merit as far as I can see.
Chris Boggs Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 5:54 am
Phew…we talked about this on “The Pulse” last night, and unfortunately I had not read this post. However, we seemed to be in line with what you have said.
Complete Web Design and Development Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 7:31 am
More than PR I think site’s ranking is more important. So as long as your site is ranking well in the search engines PR won’t matter. High PR is good for link exchanges but doesn’t necessarily ensure good rankings.
Manish Pandey Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 7:53 am
Thanks for sharing dude…
Manish
Glenn Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 7:56 am
Why doesn’t Google just remove pagerank as a public value since it is only 1 factor in 100. It would be more useful to expose more factors or just get rid of pagerank.
I guess I could answer this as it provides great conversation among the web communities and thus the name “Google” comes up more often then the compeititors. I always thought it was stupid yahoo/msn didn’t have some type of public ranking to create their own buzz. Maybe because it is a double edged sword and they are afraid to cut themselves too deeply.
Matt Cutts Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 10:11 am
Joseph Hunkins, I read Jim’s post here:
http://www.jimboykin.com/pagerank-bar/
Sounds like Martinibuster is handling most of the common questions just fine..
Viz Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 12:45 pm
I ‘ve just launched a new recruitment portal and I can’t see anybody using it before it gets off ground zero.
Google shouldn’t have triggered this linkomania and PR. Web masters’ main concern, nowadays, is link exchange and sale not content or good accessible and useful web sites
Viz
Alan Walker Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 12:49 pm
I find it very interesting reading all the data on PR good and bad, though it appears to be the thoughts of other to ingore it, though to me this is wrong, lets take a simple point of trying to get good links, the same ol story comes back time and time again, “Sorry ol Chum” you dont have any PR, or your links page does not have a PR, so it is really hard to try and ignore PR, if there is no value in PR then get rid of it.
KINGofLINKS Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
Hey guys,
I am a link analyst for one of the leading SEO companies, and I am seeing lots of PR activity. A lot of our clients are jumping from PR zeros and ones to threes and fours. And the threes and fours are jumping to fives. We even had a client that went from a seven to an 8 which is very exciting. I want to mention that the changes in SERPS is very marginal compared to the changes in PR, because the SERPS have been moving up more gradually. Versus the PR where we get a big hit at once. Also different data centers show different PR and even different SERPS, so google is still doing its DANCE…… I would like to thank Matt for being a good sport and giving us some actual answers about PR.
THANK,
KINGofLINKS
Kevsh Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 1:53 pm
Thanks for some myth-busting info. However, I am curious about those Future PageRank prediction tools that gather PR values from the various data centers. I’m not sure if there’s an exact answer but is there a way to determine that “bump” for a page to the next PR? If, say, 70% of the data centers show the higher PR … 100% … 51%?
BWDOW Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 6:29 pm
Dear Matt
Thanks for all these usefull informations.
I have read all of this article. I can not imagine that google’s datacenters are not working synchroniusly. Exported PR doesn’t takes lots of BW or lots of cpu usage. You can change them giving same results in a few hours.
Dave (Original) Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 6:43 pm
Alan, you don’t want to exchange links with anyone that mentions PR. These types are the more likely to become “bad neighborhoods” IMO.
Now, if Google stopped feeding the PR frenzy (toolbar PR) the WWW would be a much better place IMO.
Nitin Said,
October 4, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
Really its very helpfull information about page rank for all SEO’s.
Thanks Matt
galway web services Said,
October 5, 2006 @ 12:59 am
Hi Matt,
Great Post ! I had been of the opinion some time ago that PR really really mattered… And of course its great for SERPS and Ive seen that too but Quality Content and lots of it seems to be the way to go and to concentrate on that..
Sat like a lunatic waiting for the last PR and when it happened was surprised for both negative and positive reasons but it boiled down to sites that I had , with little content got PR1 and sites that Id actually done some work on getting PR4 ( which seems to be fairly easy to attain..)
Im setting up a local Web Design/DEV/ SEO in Ireland and wouldnt call myself a Guru but reading posts like yours certainly helps.
Thanks again
Galway Web Services
Karl Said,
October 5, 2006 @ 4:19 am
DavidW: this is what I mean with additional information through the colours as:
politics - black
buisiness - red
art - yellow
dictionary - green
….. all between and in truecolor
Jon Langevin Said,
October 5, 2006 @ 4:30 am
Hey Matt, long time reader, first time poster
(lol, radio station 
)
Anyways, I’ve been working with my employer, Sound Choice, on getting their e-commerce website to perform better. We’re running a shopping cart solution that has very busy urls, so I’ve optimized the urls so that each page appears static, and has the product title in the page url. We also moved the website from /shop to the site root ( / ).
The store has always had a pagerank of 4, but has *never* listed for the term “karaoke”. Yet now, I’m seeing the google toolbar show a PR of 0, yet we’re now listing on page 4 of search results for the term “karaoke” (heh, if you sort by 100, so we’re position 430 or so). That’s definitely better than we’ve positioned in the past, and additionally we are ranking well for a number of product keywords now (some pages are going Supplemental though, I’ll have to figure that one out).
Anyways, I was wondering why would there be a change in the Pagerank value? Is it due to the move from /shop to the root? Or is something worse happening regarding our site’s index with google?
Thanks for any help/suggestions you can provide, I’m feeling a bit worried since this is a major focus of my job :-X
Thanks!
-Jon Langevin
Sound Choice Karaoke
Gilby Said,
October 5, 2006 @ 10:34 am
Oy, enough PageRank questions! My advice is not to obsess about PageRank too much; it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents.
I also think PR is not so important … but to focus differently our atention…
Matt: ¿Could you please tell us almost 5 o 10 of those factors you often consider to score documents?
Thanks a lot
Paul Said,
October 6, 2006 @ 12:42 am
Matt,
from what I have read here, you are basically saying that toolbar PR is wrong most of the time and not a real indication of actual PR.
If that is the case then why bother with PR at all? why have a toobar pr if its not dated correctly? and why create an emphasis on releasing toolbars with PR?
Frankly it seems like Google are abandoning or not paying enough attention to a tool or resource that they pushed onto seo’s and website owners. Now that they have had their use, they are not even bothering with it anymore.
seems hardly fair to me. Am I not the only who feels that toolbar PR makes you feel good and adds valuable inches to your e-penis?
Google Tutor Said,
October 6, 2006 @ 8:02 am
I’m calling you out, Brotha. I think this is all slight of hand…
http://www.googletutor.com/2006/10/06/matt-cutts-pulls-the-wool-over-on-webmasters/
and it is Friday
Dr. Anna Berger Said,
October 6, 2006 @ 5:01 pm
[quote]Matt,
from what I have read here, you are basically saying that toolbar PR is wrong most of the time and not a real indication of actual PR.
If that is the case then why bother with PR at all? why have a toobar pr if its not dated correctly? and why create an emphasis on releasing toolbars with PR?
Frankly it seems like Google are abandoning or not paying enough attention to a tool or resource that they pushed onto seo’s and website owners. Now that they have had their use, they are not even bothering with it anymore.[/quote]
DITTO 100%
Harith Said,
October 7, 2006 @ 4:10 am
Dr. Anna Berger
“from what I have read here, you are basically saying that toolbar PR is wrong most of the time and not a real indication of actual PR.”
The Toolbar isn’t wrong most of the time
But its correct to say that the Toolbar doesn’t always displays the current value of PageRank which is continuosly calculated at Googleplex.
And as you know Google is still using PageRank to rank sites, though “it is one of more than 100 different factors in how we score documents” as MC mentioned.
GoogleGuy wrote in 2004 few words which might interest you:
[quote]I’d strongly disagree with the statement that the toolbar PageRank is for “entertainment purposes only”–millions of toolbar users use the PageRank display to judge the quality of pages. I think it’s also a little irresponsible to quote JohnGalt claiming to talk to some random person at Google, and then for you to quote it as a reponse from Google, which makes it sound more official. I’m happy to refute that this is any sort of official stance.[/quote]
Flexible Circuits Said,
October 7, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
In my opinion, we should treat the PR just as a funny thing. If you have nothing important to do, you can do your way to improve PR of your site.
Barry Welford Said,
October 8, 2006 @ 4:24 am
Perhaps I’m talking to myself at this point, but there’s another element associated with PageRank that is even more neglected. I’m talking about that search for backlinks that can be done with a search for site:mysite.com. This type of search should be eliminated. It purports to tell you something and if it’s meant to show you what Google counts as backlinks to the website, then it’s just plain wrong. I have a website that has finally been rated for PageRank, moving from 0 to 4 in this recent update. The site:mysite.com type search still shows no backlinks. This is for a site where Yahoo! is showing 49,000 inlinks (backlinks).
Since the site:mysearch.com feature never gave useful results, I suggest it be cancelled rather than leaving it as a sign of poor quality.
Online florist Said,
October 9, 2006 @ 10:12 am
PR is so important nowadays until people is “selling” website with high PR. I don’t think it is a healthy trend, although in the capitalism world anythings can be sold.
And i agreed with Matt’s answer for the beginning of the post , “If you don’t care about PageRank and your site is doing well, that’s fine by me”.
If the website owner create “attractive and important ” content and do some regular posts in the forum, then many people will visit and link to it, and as a result, higher PR will reward you.
So, just consider PR as a result, not the mean. IF you have a correct mean, you will get the result.
Kristen Said,
October 9, 2006 @ 11:38 am
Thanks Matt. I know a lot of debate over PR gets around. It’s good to hear from an “insider” rather than a one-sider on whether PR is dead vs the ultimate after content.
Cellular Said,
October 10, 2006 @ 5:04 pm
Hello everyone,
I have used in the past prediction tools such as those mentioned by Jim on his website http://www.jimwestergren.com/future-pagerank-prediction/
They have predicted very realistic results and presented probably somewhere 80-90% accuracy. None the less, I use them as guidance but not as orientation purpose deciding how much I will focus on Marketing next month. Overall good post by Matt, thank you.
Scaly Said,
October 11, 2006 @ 1:28 am
Thanks for this post, I should show this article to my boss, he’s always curious why our PR dont change everyday, like hes thinking… lol
adult friend finder Said,
October 12, 2006 @ 8:00 pm
If the website owner create “attractive and important ” content and do some regular posts in the forum, then many people will visit and link to it, and as a result, higher PR will reward you.
Netfreez Said,
October 12, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
Hello Matt,
I came across this tool which I found quiet useful especially since many tools I have used in the past no longer do the job they are supposed to do or its developers have been slacking of, The Website Metrics Reporting Tool evaluates how a website is ranked for PR, Backlinks, Index, Latest Cache and you also have the ability to use 2 optional keywords to see where you’re at.
The website also has a good number of Google data-centers featured as well performance data from Yahoo and MSN.
http://www.reladvance.com/metrix/find_metrics_form.php
Damir
Sumanus Dizainas Said,
October 12, 2006 @ 11:16 pm
Thanks Matt, nice post.
I think you should begin always begin your post about Pagerank, with your words, that we should think of Pagerank as a symptom, not as a cause.
But I still just wonder and really would like to ask - may site with a good backlinks from good sites, good content (simply good SEO) can be be #1 at SERP with Pagerank 0 and the second one with PR 5 ?
eman Said,
October 13, 2006 @ 6:16 am
Great tool Netfreez…..that has saved me tons of work. Thanks.
Chris Ashdown Said,
October 13, 2006 @ 6:40 am
Dear Matt
What is the real purpose of back links in the modern web, the only thing i can see is that itmakes many people spend all there time trying to link with other sites, as its manufactured results those with most free time or money to spend on it get the results. time waisted when it should be spent on improving sites
Retail sites should be segmentised and then content should be the leading search criteria,
Search results with other search engines should be removed from the main results index and placed in a seperate sidebar on possibly on the left hand side
SEO Company Said,
October 14, 2006 @ 4:49 am
Matt one more thing I would also want to ask is that does the links coming from high PR have much better effect on our rankings than the links coming from low PR sites.
Akash
Jomo Said,
October 16, 2006 @ 11:50 am
Matt,
This is really useful stuff.
Out of interest, do you have to sit down with your seniors at Google and discuss the nature and content of your blogs. I can imagine that you may have quite a lot of knowledge which, if shared with the world, may do some ‘damage’ to google. As a result, do u have to gain clearance from your superiors before posting on ’sensitive’ issues, or you just go with the flow?
Just curious,
Jomo
EdwardH Said,
October 16, 2006 @ 1:38 pm
Matt -
Thanks for the detailed responses!
New question for you… I’ve noticed that some sites have a consistent page rank for each page throughout the site, yet others have a good page rank on their home page, but no ranking for interior pages. Clearly not all pages within a site receive the same amount of traffic, same quantity of inbound links and same level of interest from visitors. Do all pages earn rank in their own right, or is rank sometimes assigned to all the pages within a domain?
Roger Balmer Said,
October 18, 2006 @ 4:36 am
Matt,
Sorry, I know this is an old entry. Question, can it be, that still not all data centers have the same data for the google toolbar pagerank???
Checking your site, I get different PageRanks for it from different datacenters. This type of thing is happening with mostly all changed sites in switzerland, day or night. Once a PR7, once a PR0….
Examples:
http://livepr.raketforskning.com/?u=www.mattcutts.com%2Fblog%2F
http://livepr.raketforskning.com/?u=blog.namics.com
Thanx
Roger
Mike the Lawyer Said,
November 20, 2006 @ 8:28 am
Matt,
If I have had a site indexed in Google since last May, when will the toolbar show any page rank for the site? I can see it coming up in the SERPs, but still no PR.
Rick Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
I thought that pagerank was the only thing that mattered when getting high ranks in google, now Im not that sure!
Dharmendar Mendar (Raj) Said,
December 1, 2006 @ 5:09 am
Hi Matt,
I am wondering if the google is about to start giving manual page ranking…just like what it called TrustRank.
But if it is true..then how often they will reach to a regional site. or a normal site which is linked to fews sites hosted on just one IP.
dont you think it will take so so so long time to rank a site or a specific page.
Vijay Said,
December 16, 2006 @ 5:45 am
Hi matt, Thanks for giving the informative answers.
I have come with a question; If my site has a PageRank zero can it go to the first place in google for some keywords or it must have some PR.
like if I search for offshore software development, I see my site in first 15 pages and the PR=1, Can it go on first place with a highly competitive keyword with this.
Wim Hoogenraad Said,
December 18, 2006 @ 5:38 am
I don’t understand PageRank anyway. Can you explain why the PageRank of my site ( webmasterslookup.com ) is 4 in the morning and is 5 in the afternoon (from a Netherlands point of view)? This is going on for 3 weeks now. I made a datacenter analyzer on http://www.webmasterslookup.com (you can use it if you like) to find a reason.
My best guess is that Google controles the DNS-servers to to redirect the traffic to the different datacenters. The PR on this datacenters is not the same…. Or is there another explanation?
Greatings, Wim
Tom Said,
December 26, 2006 @ 3:41 pm
Hugely interesting FAQ section. So are all the rumors correct that the next PR update is mid Jan 2007? Cheeky question I know.
Swimming pool equipment Said,
December 28, 2006 @ 8:22 pm
Hi matt, i have a question, is a webpage has a zeo PR due to being blacklisted, will the whole website being backlisted too ? for example : http://www.aaa.com/page1.htm is blacklisted, will the http://www.aaa.com be blacklisted too ?
thanks
First Aider Tom Said,
January 10, 2007 @ 3:40 am
Matt, are you able to confirm whether or not the next PR export is underway now?
Brian McQuay Said,
January 10, 2007 @ 1:51 pm
I wish there was a more real-time predictive way to analyze the effectiveness of SEO related changes I make to my sites’ content and internal linking structure than having to wait for the search engines to recrawl, update pagerankings, etc. Any ideas?
worldwide Said,
January 11, 2007 @ 10:17 am
Hi Matt,
In recent updates i find most of the high PR Ranked SITES are slipped to ZERO on Google PR tool bar and i believe all were very reputed sites.
So,my question to you is why this is happening ?
Is Google is shifing their DC to new INFRASTRUCTURE ?
OR Google is changing their parameters to Rate SITES ?
KINDLY update and CLEARIFY MY Doubts AT THE EARLIEST.
Regards;
credit guy Said,
January 12, 2007 @ 12:18 am
Hi Matt,
It always puzzled me to see a site with subpages that have higher PR than the index page. I always thought the index page would always have the highest PR amongst all pages. I’d appreciate it if you could shed some light on this.
Thanks!
Denis Said,
January 12, 2007 @ 12:50 pm
Hi Matt.
Seen the growing number of Toolbar-PR adepts, blindly following PR just as if the green toolbar pixels would have a direct effect on their website positionning in search results, I thought it would be a nice idea to provide the french speaking SEO community with a translation of your explanation about what is a PR export, and how it is not to be considered as an “update”, and won’t affect the rankings… That’s on my tiny little SEO-fan blog
In the mean time, I have a question for you, if you find a few minutes for me:
PageRank (I mean the one that’s shown in green pixels), looked very easy to get for someone who knew how to get it… a few links from high “PageRanked” websites seemed enough to grab a PR5 or a PR6 on their own website. This seemed to be true until summer 2006, but seems to have changed now and to have become much more complicated.
Here comes the question then: did the main factors affecting Page Ranking by Google change…? It looks like everything was about backlinks, a few months ago… and a website with only a few of them (real ones, not only the ones shown through the link: command) could be high ranked quite fast. It looks way more complicated now to be granted a “decent” PageRank (let’s say above PR3). Can you tell us if factors such as “general thematic”, “duplicate content analysis”, or even “bad neighbourhood” and “SandBox effects” now affect the Page Ranking, more than before? Can you tell us also whether or not this “TrustRank” thing has a significant weight in the SERPs ranking algorithm?
Thanks a lot in advance.
Kind Regards.
Paul Nangle Said,
January 15, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Matt,
You talk about content a lot and in this post you warn against link obsession but we compete with a site for the keyword phrase area rug and they rank with no site. It has been gone for months but they still rank. I would think having no site at the URL would be the entire lack of content. How is this possible? If it isn’t links that keep it around what is it? Obviously we are not losing business to them but it has been making me crazy. Any insight would be great.
Thanks Matt,
Paul
Malaysian restaurant Said,
January 24, 2007 @ 8:46 am
The PR is being update in January. how long will it take to finish update ? i saw some websites’ PR goes up and down, is it because of different data centre ?
Jesse-Lee Stringer Said,
February 1, 2007 @ 5:57 am
The irony is that
[quote]If you’re splitting hairs about the exact date that backlinks were taken from, you’re probably suffering from “B.O.” (backlink obsession)[/quote]
It (PR) can be a daily struggle to understand WHY PR goes up and spreads through domains.
I’ve got 2 major domains. http://www.southeastauto.com.au with a PR=2 while my first active domain recieves a PR=1… Wierd as they’re both only 3 months old
David Michaels Said,
February 13, 2007 @ 10:24 pm
Um, the designing for humans is great as long as humans can find you. I can show you some great sites in my industry that aren’t making two cents. The sites weren’t built by me, I have nothing to do with them other than they are my competitors. Well not really competitors since they used to rank in the 20s to 50s in the results and now they are practically gone from the main index.
In business the rule that holds true is that location is the first consideration for a successful business. This holds true on the web as well. If a consumer is looking for table tennis supplies and the most human friendly great content site is way down in the rankings then chances are the consumer is going to purchase the supplies from the one of the first sites they come across that satisfies their needs.
So it’s a fantasy to think that one can blithely build a great website without regard to the search engine’s needs and think that customers will come. Unless some form of marketing accompanies that website, PPC, Banners, Bumper Stickers, Guy on The Roadside with Sandwich Board then they won’t come because they won’t know where to go and no one will be pointing them there.
Yes of course some site go viral and get all kinds of social mention and attention and get the resulting rank that goes with it. But these are rarely commerce sites. A commerce site has to get attention the old-fashioned way, they have to buy it.
David Michaels Said,
February 13, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
You know Matt, Google’s mission statement of Do No Evil is totally compromised with the release of Page Rank info.
Why? Because it has absolutely zero value to your users and tons of value to people who want to manipulate the rankings. And is a big worry spot for people that just care about rankings for their pages.
What would the world be like if we could hve back the millions of hours spent obsessing over PR since Google made it public. The millions of hours tweaking for PR, creating link schemes and link farms for PR, the millions of hours creating spam pages for PR.
Give me one valid reason how showing PR improves the user experience when searching the web?
I am on your blog right now because my boss is freaking out about us slipping in the rankings, about our PR not being high enough. I could care less about PR or about SEO except that apparently, we lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a month if we don’t rank in the top 3. So it’s big business to rank. What is the motivation for disclosing page rank?
Why couldn’t you have found a way to make money without PPC and not compromised your values and your results? You want to talk about SPAM - I would like for once to go somewhere without being bombarded by advertisements. Your adsense program is the biggest cause of spam on the internet right now.
SEO Pakistan Said,
February 23, 2007 @ 3:27 am
Goole has added a links tool in webmaster sitemaps section. The back links shown over there are not exactly the same as shown with link command. But greater in #. Any one have some further details about it.
Francesco Said,
February 27, 2007 @ 3:58 am
Matt,
thank you for your answers.
I stopped to care too much about page rank once I found out I have no ‘direct’ control over it. Now I spend more time thinking about my website content.
Please, can you give a comment about this tool?
http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtool.asp
I like it and I would like to know your opinion.
John Smith Said,
March 15, 2007 @ 9:25 am
I observed that Privacy policy page is considered to have a higher page rank than other pages. I thought that it is something particular to one of my sites, but then I have observed the same thing on the second. Is Google calculating page rank based on some kind of “Theme importance” criteria also?
memorias usb personalizadas Said,
March 19, 2007 @ 2:55 am
“PageRank paranoia” is an issue that every webmaster may fall victim to sonner or later.. As a rule of thumb, watch the green bar with interest but don’t take it too seriously or spend too much time trying to force it to increase. There are even rumours that Google will be changing the PageRank system because they are not happy with how it is being manipulated and interpreted.
Keep it real!
FeeCOMSPU Said,
March 24, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
Hi Matt,
It always puzzled me to see a site with subpages that have higher PR than the index page. I always thought the index page would always have the highest PR amongst all pages. I’d appreciate it if you could shed some light on this.
Thanks!
Bradman Said,
March 27, 2007 @ 12:23 am
Page Rank is so important to a website. But I would like to know from PR1 to PR10 what would be the estimated traffic?
Thanks!
Teddy Said,
March 31, 2007 @ 3:18 am
Thanks for article. I always been curious about how google works on the insides. But i do notice that some site with high page rank not necesary have good results. I bet there are other factors that determine how your results show up
David Said,
March 31, 2007 @ 8:39 am
First of all I would like to say a nice aritcle, very helpful.
PR in itself is a huge topic. There are probably a hundred different factors google uses to decide a PR for a page. Having inbound links is just the start. Sorting out your own insite navigation, choosing the right keywords, choosing the right amount of keywords, choosing the right amount of links on a page etc etc are just some of the factors, there are many more.
It needs researching and reading into and remember some of the advice offered doesn’t apply to as a blanket for all websites. Some websites will do better following some tips that others.
I personnnally have been working on our website http://www.applianceplanet.co.uk and the more I read the more I realise I have many more things to consider. Currently we have a PR3 on homepage but hopefully in the next PR update this will increase after doing some extensive directory submission on working on our internal links.
Susan Said,
April 2, 2007 @ 8:30 am
My page rank just dropped from 4 to 5. Did I do something wrong? The only change I have recently made was to add a www in front of my domain name. In other words I usually just use http://susansdesign.com for my Url and then I read something about the important of adding the http://www. So now I have been adding the www to my domain whenever I add it to some new place. It now is http://www.susansdesign.com Is this really important or did this mess me up?
Any ideas?
Teddy Said,
April 12, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
Susan I read somewhere there is a difference on how PR will be evaluated if u add http://www. and without the http://www. Just stick to one format only
Bishan Said,
April 18, 2007 @ 7:05 am
Hello Matt,
How can we see the difference between changes in rankings as a result of those data pushes that happening like every 1-2 and the traditional Everflux. Can we assume that from now on rankings of sites wouldn’t be as stable as before?
Bishan
Bambarbia Kirkudu Said,
April 19, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Unfortunately the role of 301 is not mentioned in so many PR-articles. Another thing, similar to 301: by mistaken, I had two DNS mapped to the same web application; one DNS was automatically banned by Google.
Google (and many others, such as Nutch, Yahoo, etc.) uses specific MD5-like calculation of raw bytes from each URL. And, this hash code is real PRIMARY KEY in their databases. URL is not a primary key. So, when we have few URLs pointing to another real URL via 301, we have one record only in a Google database. There is possibility of bug: “old” URL with new content from another URL. New URL will never be in a database (implicit ban), until you remove 301 and resubmit new DNS.
BTW, this gives another trick to “similar content” providers: simply ensure that MD5 is not the same for “similar” content! Add hidden field, meta tag, or show Date/Time on your page.
Also note: so many BLOG owners fall in love with rel=’external nofollow’. However, probably only Google and Nutch use it (and Google tries to add it to HTML specs). Do not mix rel=’external nofollow’ with SPAM protection in your site design… I use it at my site just to limit ‘follow’ links to 100…
New Google algorithm should (if implemented correctly) automatically define NotRelatedLinks and exclude it from PR calculation. For instance, if I have a shopping site, and link ‘follow!!!’ on this BLOG, - it should be remowed from PR calculations.
Unfortunately everything is clear in theory, and not in practice: http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank_calculator.php
Google can’t follow PageRank(c) theory, it takes years to calculate real “probability that average user will reach your site by random roving the Web”.
Check http://www.A9.com, it is interesting to see and feel that Google (really) has PR10, and that Yahoo is “number one”.
Bambarbia Kirkudu Said,
April 19, 2007 @ 1:50 pm
2+4=6
What is a point around PageRank(c)…
I have a site, single HTML page + link to Resume, which has constant value PR3 during last 4 years (at least). Is the “probability that user will reach your page” related to 3/10 indeed?
Copyrighted PageRank(c) has nothing to do with ordering of a search results returned. Especially now, with Google Toolbar statistics.
Another website is on 3rd place in a search results somehow, a suspect because it uses very specific keywords such as appareil auditif piles… and it has PR(Zero)!!!
meeero Said,
April 22, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
you can stick to one format (with, or without http://www.) using permanent redirects, code 301… just ask uncle google for a manual, depending on your werbserver or set a nameserver-entry from http://www.yourdomain.com to yourdomain.com type CNAME
James Said,
April 25, 2007 @ 8:59 pm
Hi
I am interested to hear more about what is said regarding SERPS and page rank zero sites.
I believe that until a site has a page rank it will never rank well in the SERPS.
I have a site: http://www.simpsonsmovie2007.com which started in Jan this year. It has a zero page rank yet it has strong back links and related industry links plus plenty of content and on page SEO. It ranks highly in all search engines for the Simpsons Movie but it doesn’t in Google. Reason why? It hasnt been ranked yet by Google.
Is the jist of what I’m saying true? Thanks
Latest Songs Said,
April 28, 2007 @ 5:15 pm
Hi there!
I would like to know why some pr tools show different pr and some show different? Isn;t it suppose to be just one Pr..
inter-dev Said,
April 30, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
Hi,
Thank you for explaining about Google PR.
I have some questions, that i can’t find answers to, no matter where i search. First, Today i notices a very strange behavior when checking a certain site’s PR on a number of google data centers. 70% showed a page rank of Zero, and the rest page rank 4. the site is 6 years old, ranking 4/5 most of the time, never zero.
I was sure that soon all the data centers would show zero (since i understand eventually they show the same rank), but to my surprise, after 5 hours or so when checking again, i see that all data centers show 4. Why, How and what is thois supposed to mean?
Also, could you please advise whether a site with a page rank of zero can keep getting the same SE ranking as it did previously when ranked higher..? I ask this because in read in some forums that the PR, although lowered to zero did not change the traffic and rankings and i thought it to be strange.
I would be happy if you could help me out in this puzzle,
thank you so much!
Aia
daryl Said,
May 10, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
Hi Matt, glad you explained PR and PR Obsession. But the one thing that seems obvious when you look at the datacenters in a short time is that they are not all even similar in the SERP they return for some searches. So there has to be huge difference not just in PR, SITE: but in the actual indexes.
Market Matador Said,
May 11, 2007 @ 1:41 am
Hey Matt!
Great, in-depth post man. Don’t really know anything about you, but I followed you from a comment you left on my friend’s site, ThePiggyBanker.com. I’ve been puzzled by all of the pagerank business but this definitely helps!
Unfortunately, my entry into Text-Link-Ads is heavily dependent on the next PR update. Or at least that’s what seems to be the case. I’ve built up my website quite heavily since then, and have made a lot of progress since the last update, and I’m kind of expecting a 2 or 3 point boost. Huge move from my low 3.
Therefore, I’m wondering how long you may be able to estimate until the new Pagerank is publicized? In other words, on my toolbar. I’d hate to think that in the slower traffic months of the Summer, I wouldn’t have a redundant financial source like TLA, since I don’t really have a lot of income or capital as is.
I would love to hear back from you! Comment on my site or give me an e-mail.
Thanks,
-Sam from MarketMatador.com
Perfect Wealth Formula Said,
May 11, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
When I stopped caring about my PR, my sites started doing better
because I then spent my time on important things like improving
content, improving conversions etc. and the results followed.
Shaun Anderson Said,
May 22, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
Thanks for the FAQ.
Adam Mz. Said,
June 10, 2007 @ 10:32 am
Ehhh… PR is “rat race” ,realy google mast resign PR…
Sergey Nizh Said,
June 19, 2007 @ 8:35 am
It is really usefull infromation. The problem for me was to find out what is PR Toolbar. I spent some time to find out an information about this toolbar on the Internet. I think there should be glossary link on this kind of articles.
Thank you for the information.
Peter Pk Said,
June 28, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
Thanks for the information but I don’t care much about PR. I just focus on creating quality content for my visitors. If visitors keep coming back to my site every day, I’ll be fine.
David Said,
July 9, 2007 @ 8:52 pm
OK. Now that we have all been info’ed to stop putting so much emphasi in PageRank…
In all polite humility, I would like to ask: why not just make PageRank to big deal again?
For a given search, I can see who shows up on top (and every other position). Using tools that leverage the API’s ( like ranking.thumbshots.com ) I can see the top 100 of several engines at once.
What I can’t see, that I would really like: a PR that correctly indicate a base strength, and a relevance score. I’d love to be able to follow all of the guidelines, and recommendations, and best practices. I’d love to make human-friendly pages that are easy for Google to spider, with clear sitemaps ad accurate modified dates and really help Google help me.
At the end of doing everything in the most professional and honest way, I’d really like a score that means something.
I am not asking for a system that is easy to “game” but would like a more playable game with the rules better known.
Why not just make the (Larry) PageRank a huge deal again?
When I do the right, recommended and honest thing, I’d love to show my boss and my clients a number from Google that means something.
It reminds me of colleges saying that SAT scores are not that big of a deal, and then mumbling about extracurricular activities.
Tell me that high SAT’s plus good grades equals I get to go to your college.
I’d be perfectly happy with a PR + relevance = top results. When spamdexers get slimy and find tricks tocheat, then they get reported and the algorythm get changed to be a bit more human.
If it is Google’s intention to get honest, human-useful pages, why not score them in a more complete fashion and make the score known?
We have a situation here where Google is driving site design. I totally appreciate the fact the Google is saying “just make good, relevant, content and we’ll reward you.” It would just be great to get quick feedback on how well we have done this, and maybe what we could do to improve. A really relevant PR score would be a step towards this.
.
florist Said,
July 22, 2007 @ 9:48 pm
Is PR still important nowadays after google introduce the Universal search ? how to judge a webapge is more important than a video ? or an image ?
Maximum Persuasion Said,
July 25, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
I recently came across a site with PR6… and using domain-pop.com, I discovered that it had a lot of backlinks from Digg, netscape and Squidoo. At least 40 of these backlinks were PR5-8!!
But beyond this… no other backlinks. Zilch. Nada.
So this leads me to wonder, can you get extremely high page rank just by being linked from three authority sites and being unknown to the rest of the web community?
Nats Said,
July 29, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
A very interesting article. PR for many it seems is a medal for their creativity in producing a site in which people want to return to. We should not get too hung up on it!…..for those making money from sites it’s a must for others it has little value.
Real Estate Websites Said,
August 2, 2007 @ 8:50 pm
What importance does Google PR have on overall ranking of a website or web page?
Web Said,
August 3, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
Thank you for the very clear and understandable explanations. I watched a video of yours today and have been reading quite a bit. I really like how you can make fairly complex topics understandable to people who may not be as techy.
Aron Said,
August 4, 2007 @ 5:51 am
Google PR is not so importat in overall page ranking, its better to concentrate to a good content.
Cezar Lech Said,
August 11, 2007 @ 4:41 am
Why Google don’t update Page Rank for Google Directory since 19 Mar 2006 ?!
Profitable eBay Niches Said,
August 24, 2007 @ 2:37 am
Is there any search engine, which allows to search (or sort search results) depending on their pagerank?
Bill Said,
September 3, 2007 @ 6:38 am
Has Google abandoned Pagerank? I have not seen an update in over four months. Why the lagginess? Without regular updates, pagerank seems like a waste of the toolbar space.
Ryan Said,
September 6, 2007 @ 4:45 pm
Matt,
I’m trying to get to the bottom of something with our Page Rank. We had 3 domain names pointing to the same content for the first couple of months we were in business. Two of them had a 6 as thier page rankings. The third which we implemented last never had a page rank. For SEO efforts, we turned the other two (with 6 page ranks) to 301 permanent redirects to the third domain name, and left the last one available.
It’s been 3-4 months now, and we still have not been able to garner a page rank. Google has our site indexed all over the place, but out page rank has never improved. Is it possible we are on a page rank banned list, does this exist, or do you think I need to wait longer for the next page rank to happen?
Thanks.
Marketing Sites Said,
September 8, 2007 @ 11:59 am
I dont see what the big deal over PR is, build a quality site with content and google will find it as well as people.
Marketing Sites Said,
September 8, 2007 @ 12:04 pm
What importance does Google PR have on overall ranking of a website or web page?
If i am not mistaken there are over 200 things that compose the PR of a website and therefore its ranking. I am ositive that today only producing quality content is not enough, you have to market it really well.
Diarmuid O'Donovan Said,
September 8, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
The question “is page rank important?” has been asked numerous times, the answer has been provided in many different ways. The experts say not to worry too much about “page rank”. But I do and here is why.
Like exam results, your sites page rank gives you an independent evaluation of what someone else (in the case of page rank, something else, Google) thinks of your efforts. As everyone is ranked around same time and using the same criteria with Page Rank you have something to use to compare your sites standing with that of yours peers or competition. Even if the comparison tool itself, is imperfect and not bang up to date, it is still some indication of your sites progress over time.
It is one measure in an otherwise difficult to quantify SEO world. It also provides some indication of other issues that are always spoken about in abstract terms.
For example, you are told that you need links and lots of them. But no one ever says how many links is enough. If you have, what, in your opinion, is lots of links and your Page Rank is not improving, maybe you have to adjust your expectations based on your expected number of links that you can reasonably expect to get in your given sector. Whereas a half decent blog can organically, attract countless links, outside the blogisphere, getting links can be a grind and the effort has to be weighted against the benefits.
So having some measure of the value Google places on you little piece of cyberspace is important and something better comes along, regardless of its well publicized limitations, Page Rank is the only show in town, hence it is important, if it provides a fair reflection of your sites worth or not.
So does, anyone know, when the next update is coming?
Swiss Said,
September 12, 2007 @ 12:55 am
Thanx a ton matt ! That was very helpful .
Google Page Rank is Dead, here's why Said,
September 14, 2007 @ 6:42 am
We have seen the last of Page Rank, Google have scrapped it.
Frank Said,
September 14, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
Hi Matt,
Quick question on the toolbar page rank…. What does it mean when your toolbar shows a PR value for the main page but is grayed out for all other