A couple months ago, I came to a realization that Google Pagerank doesn’t mean a thing – and till this very day, it still doesn’t. And quiet frankly, it shouldn’t to all of you either.
Everybody A Lot of people stress how important PR is, but honestly, it shouldn’t mean a damn thing. See, Google’s Pagerank is their way of telling you how good and important a website is.
Wait, for those that missed that, let me put it in quotes for you. Google’s Pagerank is “their way of telling you how good and important a website is.” And let me also quote Google’s definition on what a Pagerank is – “Pagerank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web.”
First of all, how can a “Pagerank” tell me how good or important a website is? I didn’t know it was an acting brain for… myself! I go to various websites and a lot are PR0. So does that mean that particular PR0 website is less important than one that is PR3? Or PR10?
Exactly. It doesn’t.
I don’t want to offend anybody, but that is the truth.
Yes, Google Pagerank will help you within their own search engines. And yes, Google Pagerank is used by various companies to determine their conclusions on a particular website. And yes, Google Pagerank will bring people happiness to those that continue to rank up in it.
But Google Pagerank does not tell ME how important a website is.
Not to mention that the Pagerank is a factor that is outside of your control. Yep, I said it, you have no control on it whatsoever. I mean, you can follow their rules or adjust your whole position to fit what they ask but it still doesn’t put you in the driver’s seat.
Let me give you an example without putting any particular sites down. Say John Chow (who took a PR decrease before) gets about 20,000 unique visitors in one day and someone else gets 97, obviously Chow’s site is more popular. But if you add the fact that they BOTH have the same Pagerank of 3, then in terms of Google’s Pagerank definition, they are both of equal importance on the web.
Hmm… well, I don’t know. 20,000 unique visitors a day compared to 97 and they both have a PR3? I don’t want to be the one to judge, but if I had to pick which one was more “important” then I think the answer is pretty obvious.
And your ad revenue should not be affected by it. Though, if it is, you’re simply not doing something right. So, again, who cares what Google thinks about your content, site quality, etc? Are they the thousands of people that go to your website? Are they the ones who decide if your content is worth reading? Do they own the way you write, think or talk about?
Hell no!
In addition, I’m sure all bloggers have heard this within the past few months; how sites that had “Pay-Per-Post” on them were punished by Google and had their Pagerank’s decreased because of it. So, if you don’t follow guide-by-guide, step-by-step, rule-by-rule on exactly what Google wants then they punish you for it?
Apparently, they’re the World Wide Web’s government and I didn’t know about it. And I can tell you I’m not the only one.
(And I was going to do the ‘Link Love’ post today too! Damn Google and their pagerank!)
Yep, it’s just a number. There was a collective wail here in Singapore among bloggers. It was kinda ridiculous- with many begging and saying “sorry” to Google.
I agree … what crap is that? Your example on John Chow v Website “X” is a very apt one on the crappiness of it all.
A lot of bloggers do paid reviews and if of course the higher your pagerank the higher the fee you can charge and the more opportunities that come your way.
I don’t do PPP but my rank was dropped to “0″ anyway. Maybe for having “links” (not paid though)? Who knows really. But I’m GLAD for the recent move by Google because it should signal to all advertisers that Pagerank is indeed not important and they shouldn’t use it as a benchmark otherwise they are subject to the whim and fancy of Google who changes the rules as they wish (to keep their ad revenue securely with them).
I expect to see significant shifts in the advertiser/blogger relationship in the next few weeks.
Perhaps Google should tell that to PPP.
Well said… and my sentiments exactly.
I like reading your article! Pagerank it’s just a number for me, but for a lot of people it’s not! They see it as a big thing.. the higher rank, the greater blog/site that they have!
Some time ago, when i got my PR1, i was working at this internship company and when my boss found out that my blog had a PR1, he said to me: “I don’t know why your blog got a PR1, you don’t have anything valuable on your blog! I’m sure that Google has made a mistake!”
Anyway, for him the pagerank was obviously a very BIG deal!
Like you I don’t care a good god damn about PR. Who in the h3ll does google think they are telling us who is important. this isnt survivor, this is community. I’ll let those who come to my blog and decide for themselves. if THEY find my content Valuabel. not some corporate geek idiot.
That being said I got the slap from google because I was display TLA ads and had my blog buried in the index. As a test of this teor I removed the TLA ad and guess what happened it magically re-appeared.
Keep at it dude. and dont let the Buggers get you down !!
I don’t know how page rank thing work. The recent PR update my company site upgraded from PR1 to PR2. My personal blog still PR0. The thing I don’t understand is that my personal blog (PR0) have more traffic than my company site (PR2).