The Day Google PageRank Died and Why
Do you remember Google’s PageRank named after founder Larry Page? Maybe you have seen the little green bar in the Google toolbar that represented it on a scale from 1 to 10?
October 24th, 2007 marked the day when PageRank died. It became virtually useless. At least the publicly visible one. Why? What was the purpose of Google PageRank in the first place?
PageRank was revolutionary when it was introduced by Google.
That’s why Google is where it is now: the leader in search. PageRank was determined by the number and “value” of links.
The more links and the better the links (a link by the Washington Post is of course better than one by a small unknown website like mine) the higher the PageRank.
Reminiscing the Good Old Days When PageRank Meant Something
In the beginning, a higher PageRank meant almost automatically a higher position in the organic Google search results. Nowadays you mostly see ads on top.
The simple math was an invitation to abuse though. The global PageRank trade began. People would buy and sell links for profit. Gaming Google became a big business.
A site having a 7 would outrank a PR 6 website which would come before a PageRank 5 page. Logical isn’t it? Over the years the algorithm became increasingly complex though.
Google added more and more so called ranking factors.
Thus a PageRank 7 site could be outranked by a PageRank 3 site if the latter was significantly more relevant to the search query. Google itself claims to use about 200 “signals” in their search ranking algorithm.
Still PageRank was used to determine which pages have authority as it still measured the number and power of links.
How PageRank Became a Random Vanity Metric
Then Google PageRank finally stopped to reflect the number and strength of of incoming links. Since 2007 it is determined in a way nobody can trust anymore. Let me explain:
One day onreact.com got PageRank 6. Hooray! Wait. Something went wrong on the same day. The Washington Post just got 5!
Some of the most popular bloggers like the world’s most linked weblog – Engadget – got PageRank 5 too. Problogger got 4 and marketing guru Andy Beard 3.
Do you really think I am more important than the Washington Post or the most popular gadget blog?
Do you really assume that I am 1/3 more important than the Problogger?
The bottom line is: Google PageRank became meaningless as a metric.
People who depended on the Google PageRank bar to determine the authority of a site were fed manipulated numbers.
Google PageRank became only a means of intimidation of webmasters. Google used it to “penalize” sites suspected of wrongdoing.
Google is the new Microsoft. It uses their monopolistic market position to wield power over you.
Google is not the Internet though. Even though it’s one of the most powerful corporations in the world people and lawmakers are increasingly tired of Google.
China was just the beginning. They abused the Chinese people, now they abuse everyone else. In that context my PageRank 6 is as worthless as Andy Beard’s 3.
The PageRank metric is officially dead.
Google even stopped showing it by now. PageRank is still part of the overall algorithm but does not suffice to show up on top off organic results. Some additional articles and discussions about the topic for further reading:
Great post Tad, I never really thought of the situation until now. PageRank is dead, Google is on the fritz, and who knows what’s coming next?
I feel page rank shown by the tool bar is over rated. As long at the page is indexed and the anchor text is relevant, including relevant content, page rank as seen from the tool is not that important.
Page rank is more as a tool for advertisers to charge more for links.
[…] Suchoptimierung über das simple Generieren von Links wird tot gesagt (zum Beispiel von diesem SEOler). Also muss etwas Neues her, was liegt näher als das Optimieren in und für Social […]
Tanner, thanks. I know: Social browsing, I told you ;-)
David: Yes, that’s common ground by now. If you read SEO 2.0 closely you will notice that even still widely practiced methods of SEO are outdated…
Isn’t that was there always.The ranking of the pages never reflected how popular they where right from the earlier page ranking system.SO why is that the page ranking has to die yesterday?
[…] Suchoptimierung über das simple Generieren von Links wird tot gesagt (zum Beispiel von diesem SEOler). Also muss etwas Neues her, was liegt näher als das Optimieren in und für Social […]
subbu, maybe we can call it the day page rank “officially” died.
Ever since I got a PR 6 just from distributing free WordPress themes with links back to me, I knew PR was bullshit.
subbu: Page ranking in the search results and Google PageRank (displayed in the Google bar ) is not the same.
david: Officially will be when it won’t be displayed anymore…
Michael: Now you got 7, I guess your comments will go up…
[…] PageRank lottery […]
AMEN!!
Great post Tad….you have made my day.
You are absolutely correct in that ‘Google is the new Microsoft’…..unfortunately Google brings us about 10k visitors a day!
-mb
Yeah, my website went from a PR4 to a PR3. It really doesn’t bother me as I don’t sell links (higher PR toolbar means the more you can charge). Also PR does not reflect on traffic really.
“The bottom line is: Google PageRank is now meaningless, you can’t trust it anymore whatsoever!”
If you think you can see PageRank, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
http://sphinn.com/story/10672
I totally agree. We have brand new blogs – not even 2 months old – that just got a PR4. The blogs don’t hold a candle to Andy’s or Problogger. So the PR is BS. All of us know rankings and traffic are the only thing that matters!
[…] The Day PageRank Died […]
Google literally has shot itself in its foot this time. Pagerank is dead…
It was high time anyway to say Goodbye to one of the biggest BS of our time.
Page Rank is not dead, it’s just transformed. And by the way, Problogger has a PR of 6, Andy Beard is 4.
Well, “BigBucksBlogger” finally got a page rank–of 3. My knitting blog’s page rank dropped to 3 from 4. (It had a page rank of 5 last March.)
It’s all a bit odd when I compare page ranks to other blogs. But, hey!
The fact is: People outside advertising and SEO don’t generally check the rank at all. So, if it’s unlinked from search results, it doesn’t matter for anything but advertising.
And does Google really want it to be a clear signal of how much linkjuice a page passes? That would be insane!
I do not agree fully. Though some of my websites have gone from 0 to 4 or even 5, they are still worth it. But as always, quality and relevance will determine more…
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[…] find it slightly amusing and a little interesting that in the midst of this Google PageRank debacle we received out first boost in PageRank. We’re now a […]
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What’s with the extreme hyperbole? PageRank has simply been made more strict; it’s not dead by an reasonable exaggeration of the facts. I wish SEO website would stop with the rabid anti-Google (classic anti-biggest-company phenomenon) sentiment that is based on speculation.
It’s ironic that SEO professionals don’t want people to underestimate the difficulty of their job, but they continually underestimate (e.g. “they changed something to have bad results, they are so incompetent”) the much more complex algorithms worked on by Google’s experts.
Google continually updates its algorithms in an attempt to, among other things, eliminate spam and search engine deception tactics. At worst, it’s a bad experiment in terms of tweaking (they have tweaked a lot) and at best, it’s making a little trade off to eliminate more spam.
PageRank is hardly a panacea. A smart search engine will employ a variety of different methods. Moving beyond just PageRank isa good thing. While the current incarnation *might* be bad (there’s not much evidence of it–just cherry picking–no listing of how many spam sites it droppped), they are continual
And the China thing? To say they abused the Chinese is absurd beyond belief. They were FORCED to censor their search results, and if they didn’t, no one in China would have access to their search engine at all. A boycott would not sway the very stubborn, controlling and fascists government–they’ll use their existing Chinese search engines instead. A boycott means that they have access to no Google, now THAT is abuse, if anything in this issue is.
Thank you Nathan for your long explanation.
Nonetheless I don’t like you. You’re anti-democratic to the core. I don’t know where you live or why else you’re for supporting dictatorships and large corporations wielding power over the average Joe, but this point of view is just too ugly to argue with, sorry.
If you don’t like democracy go to Birma or North Korea.
Google had to support the Chines regime, like IBM had to support the nazis! Get a history book pal. I lived once in a dictatorship and had to flee my country so don’t tell me about corporations having to support bloody regimes.
So I take it that you never buy products made in China? You better do some checking, lots of parts and complete products are made there. Better not be a hypocrite.
Google only provides a service to China and the Chinese government itself could access Google in any country they wanted to (since they control the Great Firewall). In other words, they’re not providing anything the government didn’t already have. Also, it should be patently obvious that providing public services is not the same as providing special equipment.
By refusing to go to China, the ONLY thing that the Chinese government doesn’t get is some money in taxes. They already get far, far more from the numerous businesses there that do imports/exports and other business with the U.S. and other countries.
So you do not even deny being anti-democratic? Hey, I just insulted you! Didn’t you notice? There are always reasons why opportunists support deadly regimes.
I am not living in a wood cabin myself so I certainly buy Chinese products, but I try to avoid them. Nonetheless it’s something completely different whether I as a person buy some cheap stuff at the super market or whether a huge multinational, one of the most powerful companies in the world supports a regime. Even if it’s just by sticking to the rules of the dictatorship.
I find it amusing that you’ve continually managed to ignore the vast majority of my original argument and obsessed over the paragraph about China.
“So you do not even deny being anti-democratic? ”
I didn’t address it because it was a ludicrous, baseless and knee-jerk reaction to my comment. I didn’t think it was necessary to refute something so absurd. I hope that you don’t honestly think that people who think Google should be in China are automatically anti-democratic.
If you’re suggesting that my previous silence established that I was anti-democratic, you’re engaging in a fallacy called an “argument from silence.”
Google is an opportunist? Google provides their services to the entire world. The ability to do this since their inception has always existed. How could opportunism come into play here?
Have you ever thought that Google *gasp* just wants to provide a search engine to EVERYONE?
“Nonetheless it’s something completely different whether I as a person buy some cheap stuff at the super market or whether a huge multinational, one of the most powerful companies in the world supports a regime.”
So you would be saying the same thing if you were buying products made in Nazi Germany? In aggregate, individual U.S. citizens give far, far more to China than Google does.
And in what areas are they making money off Google? Lets see…uhm, taxes for their Chinese office and network infrastructure….that’s it.
By the way, your proposition results in abuse of Chinese. Using your logic, no corporations should ever do business with China, thereby depriving them of a massive amount of important imports into their country.
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You are too quick to jump to conclusions based on limited observations and data sets. Page Rank will continue to be important in the Google algorithm if for no other reason than its the biggest percieved differentiator for their search results for the investing public. Thank about. They built a search engine that was better than everyone elses based on an algorithm and no they are going to throw it away? After they are worth BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS of dollars? Think a little more logically man. Just because your successful using Web 2.0 for traffic dosen’t mean that search isn’t important anymore or that it can’t produce just as profitable results, IF your successful. And as someone who claims to be an expert in SEO, I can’t imagine you not being successful.
google is an force.. cannot be defeted
sometimes sucks.. sometimes rules
this is virtual life..
This is good information – however I know that consultants (having worked in SEO)to this day still rely on page rank especially when link building for keywords etc – after all its the quickest way to access how much Google rates the website to consider buying links or paying directory submission fee’s.
Adrian: Ther are people who still talk about meta tags and search engine submission. Either you live in the past or today, you decide. Buying links is not just a quick fix it’s also a risky one.