Google PageRank Is Meaningless But We Still Bloody Well Need It
February 6, 2009
Until recently – I didn’t give a toss about Google PageRank. Then I realised that if your Google PageRank is low, you get less website traffic.
If you’ve not heard of Google PageRank, it’s Google’s system for measuring the quality of your site. Obviously, the Google robots can’t tell whether your pages were written by the village idiot, or a literary genius, but they’re supposed to be able to tell if your content is relevant or not.
By last year, I was getting a bit pissed of with my Google PageRank. Lots of other bloggers I know had a PageRank 4, while mine was only a 3. And I noticed that folks with a higher PageRank were able to rank higher than me in Google search results, without heaps of keyword stuffing – some of them didn’t even need the keyphrase in their title.
Obviously, ranking higher means more traffic, so in December, I decided to do something about it. I added a no-follow tag to most of my ads. And I removed all links to John Chow’s blog, because Google thinks it’s spammy. Also, I asked a Mommy Blogger and a professional lifecoach to give me a relevant inbound link, instead of just linking to my name.
And it worked. By the end of December I had a PR4. But fast forward to the beginning of January – Bluehost disabled my site. John Hoff kindly moved the site for me and re-directed cathlawson.com/blog to cathlawson.com. And Google immediately dropped me to a PR2. Now my content didn’t change one bit – so how does that make Google’s system good?
I didn’t change my content to improve my PR. And I didn’t make any changes to my content to go down again. But now that it’s gone down, I’ve lost heaps of traffic.
I’m not the only one who has had this problem. Monika Mundell of the Writer’s Manifesto went down to PR0, from a PR4 when she changed her site theme and she lost lots of traffic. And the same thing happened to Kim Woodbridge – her Google PageRank dropped 3 points.
John Hoff, the excellent WordPress Web Host says that we can change things back if I want to. I’m going to think about it over the weekend, as changing back might improve things immediately, or it could make it even worse.
Have you had problems with Google PageRank. Do you worry that by making any changes, you’ll lose a lot of website traffic?
Comments
25 Responses to “Google PageRank Is Meaningless But We Still Bloody Well Need It”
-
Successful And Outstanding Blogger
I don’t generally worry too much about page rank. I suppose that I should, but with everything else, that just doesn’t pop up on my radar until someone else mentions it.
Mike Goad’s last blog post..Wednesday Weigh-In and another new look
Interesting – and please let us know what happens. I’m not even sure Google understands page rank! My main business website is 8 years old, and I used to be obsessed with PR, and built it up to PR6. Then it started coming down every update, until it reached PR3 last year. But you know what? Traffic is higher than ever, and it’s ranking number one in all my keywords. I can’t explain it, but I’m not stressing over PR anymore.
Mike’s last blog post..A Billion Blogs in a Million Niches……..That are all the same!
Sigh. It’s another one of those web voodoo things that you can’t pin point yet you have to try to play with it, isn’t it?
To answer your question, no, I’m not paying a lot of attention to it. I was starting to build a business plan around traffic, but now I’m moving away into going after more niche-specific offerings: meaning, using sites to promote other offerings, instead of monetizing traffic.
Still, you need traffic, and it going down is not good. But it’s kinda like larger economy — global recession is not good, but is there a way to thrive in spite of it? I sure hope so. If we can’t control it, we can’t control it — worry about it isn’t going to help.
ari
Ari Koinuma’s last blog post..Carnival of Uplifting Laughter – February 6, 2009
Hi Cath. This makes no sense to me at all for your PR to drop. You are linked to often, so I would think you should be “at least” at a 4.
Last year my old blog had a PR of 4 and that surprised me because the blog was very young. At Christmas I linked to the Dysfunctional Family Christmas Songbook and dropped to a PR of 3. My new blog is only about 6 weeks old and doesn’t seem to want to move past 2. Maybe that’s normal, but I’m impatient. I do have to say that I’m not that worried right now about losing traffic because mine hasn’t risen to high numbers anyway.
Davina’s last blog post..I Lost My Introvert In A Crowd
Thanks for another interesting article, Cath, and thank you for the high-quality link.
I try not to worry about it. Once we do all the right things (such as adding no-follow tags to ads or when linking to problem websites), it’s pretty much out of our control.
I imagine yours will build back up over the next few months.
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post..A Community For Good-Looking People
Hi Cath – thanks – this is really interesting. I agree with Vered – if your site is solid now, let the numbers come back up naturally.
Since your post about linking, I am intending to link with keywords – when this heatwave is over I’m going to go back and change some of them.
Should we avoid linking to large blogs? I don’t understand. I have linked to proBlogger a few times – as a service to readers – but I can go in and unlink them.
I’ve just looked up my PR, and it is 4 – how come people are so aware of it – do they check it regularly, or do they put the badge somewhere? I’ve never seen one on a blog, I don’t think. – R
Robin’s last blog post..The Genie That Keeps On Giving
I really don’t like how random Google is. Michael Martine has decided to de-Google-fy to become less dependent on them, starting by abandoning Gmail.
And I really don’t get PageRank. Like why is Steve Pavlina a 3? Why did it take months for me to get as high as 1? Why did it take me months to rank on the first page for my own name?
And this whole thing about using relevant keywords in links–I do it, but it annoys me that we have to. It’s just not natural to use keywords in links instead of the person’s name. If the person linking to us doesn’t happen to have SEO knowledge, we’re out of luck. And then if you suggest link text to use, Google will penalize you for trying to “game the system,” when really you’re just trying to explain the rules.
BTW, I think your theme is slightly wounded. I’m not able to click on commenter’s names.
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..Making And Breaking The Rules
@ Robin, usually people know their PR because it’s displayed if you have the Google toolbar installed. I don’t, so I look up PR at prchecker.info.
The problem with linking to John Chow is not that it’s a large blog, but that it’s been heavily penalized by Google for being black hat. I don’t know exactly what he did, but he doesn’t even rank for his own name. ProBlogger is a reputable site, so you don’t need to worry about linking to it.
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..Making And Breaking The Rules
i checked my page rank maybe 3 times since i’ve been blogging. under my old blog address, i had a page rank of 3. haven’t checked for my new blog address.
changing my feed name cost me half my subscribers, but that’s okay. i guess i have to go find some more subscribers and the thrill of building it back up feels challenging.
Natural’s last blog post..Roll Call
This is actually the first time I’ve learned about Google page Rank, and no-follow tags. I always assumed Alexa was the standard. Just another web thing I’m obviously clueless on.
Jannie Funster’s last blog post..Kalyani’s Magic Fuzzy Pants
I suspect it has something to do with inbound links. Inbound links weigh heavily on PageRank.
If you think about it, cathlawson.com/blog has tons of links pointing to it, but how many does cathlawson.com have?
Even though when someone clicks a link on say, Vered’s site, and the link points to cathlawson.com/blog/2008…./article-name, they still will be redirected to the same article but without the /blog in the web address. The /blog address has a PR4 while the root address has a 2.
I bet the best route back up to a 4 for the root address is to start getting more links pointing to it.
If we change you back over to /blog, you might regain your PR4, but we can’t be sure because Google knows about the change. I could check for you, though.
About Hunter’s comment about not being able to click on people’s names, I’ve noticed there’s an rel=”external” attached to some names. That’s what’s probably causing some issues.
Thanks Hunter.
Now I’m wondering how you add no-follow tags to ads, or why do it – is there something I haven’t read that everyone else has? Thanks, Cath and friends.
Robin’s last blog post..The Genie That Keeps On Giving
Honestly, Cath. I never understand the PR’s method and sometimes, it drives me crazy…
wilhb81′s last blog post..The Useful Business Tips 16: The Things You Should Know about Ethnics Training!
Hi MikeG – I used to feel that way too. I wish I’d carried on not worrying about it.
Hi Mike – I think I would have cried if I’d gone from a 6 to a 3. But it’s great that you haven’t lost traffic. I would be happy with a PR3 again. A PR2 is the internet equivalent of having crabs.
Hi Ari – I’m glad you decided to do that. Your original traffic plans were hugely ambitious. And a lot of traffic can sometimes wind up costing you a lot before it ever pays you back.
LMAO at the songbook thing Davina. Two is fine for your new blog – I had zero for months. They only seem to do updates every few months – I think. But when mine dropped – it wasn’t update time, so I’m wondering if they’re tweaking things at Google?
Re: folk linking to me – trouble is, they’re all linking to cathlawson.com/blog and that doesn’t exist anymore. The other problem was – tonnes of people were linking to my name, which didn’t seem to do a lot of good.
Hi Vered – you’re welcome. That’s true – we can only do what we think Google want us to be doing – after that it’s just a matter of patience I guess.
Hi Robin – Do you have to rub it in about the heatwave? It’s bloody freezing here. Linking to Problogger is fine. As Hunter said – it’s John Chow that Google isn’t loving – not that it seems to make much difference to the amount of traffic he gets.
He may have done several things but I do know he was running competitions and to enter you had to link to him with a particular keyword. Google don’t like paid links – so I guess they saw his linking strategy as being just as bad as those.
Hi Hunter – Thanks. I didn’t realise that until you said. I read Michael’s email about de-Googleifying and I can understand why. I too feel that we’re becoming to reliant on them – which is dangerous.
None of it is straightforward is it? I took months to rank for anything – even when I used extremely uncompetitive keyphrases. I heard that blogs got noticed by the search engines quicker but I’ve been able to get relatively spammy non-blog webpages ranked far quicker.
Hi Valerie – It’s a shame you lost your subscribers. I rarely check mine because I just find the fluctuations so confusing.
Hi Jannie – There’s so many ways of measuring traffic and stuff, it is a bit overwhelming. Some folk rate other sites above Alexa – but you have to sign up to get accurate readings and I’m tired of giving personal details to spammers.
Hi John – Thanks. I’m really tempted to switch back. But as you say, I may well not go back to PR4 at all. I’ll email you – as I don’t want to try it if it’s going to be too much hassle.
BTW – I just checked AOL and I got your email there but I don’t understand why your emails are bouncing on Google, as others are coming through.
Hi Robin – Apparently Google don’t like you giving outbound links to advertisers. To them – it’s much the same as paid links. I will do a post on adding no follow tags soon.
Hi Wilhb – me too. Some people say it doesn’t matter and some say it does. But if we have to do all these things to make sure it increases – it isn’t going to make the search results any more natural.
Hi Cath – You might have lost some PR by having your blog redirected but that doesn’t usually take long to come back if the redirection is correct.
I never did a follow up on that article as I intended and I did end up submitting a reconsideration request to google. My PR came back at the beginning of the year – about 6 weeks after losing it. I don’t know if was the request that did it or not.
I didn’t change too much but I use nofollow on links a lot more than I used to.
Thanks for the mention.
Kim Woodbridge’s last blog post..(Anti) Social Lists 2/8/09
I think you lose PR when your DNS changes because that signals to Google that someone else could have bought the domain and therefore the content might change completely. It also happens during perfectly innocent moves. I have a PR 4 site that also dropped to PR 2 after a move. Still waiting for it to come back up, but I’ve gotten a number of high-quality links so I think it’ll happen.
It does suck in the interim.
Ruth’s last blog post..Somewhere, Someone is Meditating or Intending Actions So You’ll Find Happiness
I think the reason your PR dropped because when you were on dreamhost, your blog was located at cathlawson.com/blog. Now your blog is in the “main” directory. Little things like that mean a lot to the stupid bots!
Don’t worry – you’ve stopped a lot of the things the googlebot finds distasteful. Soon, your inbound links will multiply and this time they’ll point to the main directory.
Keep doing what you’re doing and soon, your PR will be back up to where it belongs.
Kathy | Virtual Impax’s last blog post..Cash4Gold and the Ensuing Social Media Firestorm
It’s pretty common in the webmaster forums these days to completely discount pagerank. And I think its true that it no longer has nearly the importance that it did five years ago. However, what a lot of people tend to forget is the fact that, though the google algorithmn keeps changing (more diverse, more sophisticated, more incusive of other ranking factors), it was built on pagerank.
With my own site, I’ve dropped in pagerank but my search traffic has gone up. That’s because my traffic wasn’t really built on pagerank. Having said that, though, if I had more pagerank, there’s no doubt in my mind that :
1. the site would get indexed faster.
2. the site would get indexed deeper.
3. the site would be more competitive for certain terms.
Pagerank, to me, is like links. You can never have enough. The question is, do you have the time to pursue links. Because, as fast as the web is growing, content by itself may not be enough to “attract” the links you need.
Hi Kim – 6 weeks isn’t too bad. I wonder if I should try sending a request too.
Hi Ruth – I never thought about that. I guess a lot of folk buy existing domains. And many do pay a lot more for ones with higher PR so it sounds like it probably isn’t worth it.
Hi Kathy – Hi Kathy – Thanks. I hope so – it’s just so annoying waiting.
I never bother with page rank anymore. It got to the point of being sooo frustrating that either I was angsting more than if my last cup of coffee evaporated, or being gleeful because a number changed.
I figure that Google is like the weather. It happens. Some days I’ll need an umbrella and some days I can just enjoy a bright sunny stroll.
Data points, Barbara
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach’s last blog post..MAKE Mentors Crave You… Part 1
You might be able to recover some of your PR if you use the Google Webmaster Tools to tell Google what all is your site:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard
Also note that using permanent redirects (code 301) from old pages will transfer your Google karma properly; the usual code 302′s or homegrown things will not. Article about how to do that:
http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php
Hope this helps!
Jason Cohen’s last blog post..Behind the scenes of a viral post: Why successful bloggers & companies are not role models
Hi Catherine – I’m guessing your page rank will go back up soon, but like Kim said, you could always put in a request to Google & have them review you site.
The page rank of my second blog dropped, but I think that was because I went for a long time before updating it. Although it keeps getting traffic, I’m guessing a higher page rank would send more my way.
Page rank is one of those things that’s hard for me to understand. I’ve decided to use my time on other things instead of worrying about that.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..How Do You Measure Your Success
Wow, a lot of comments on this one. Anyway, as far as I know PR is supposed to be about the quality of links to your site, and most importantly the relevancy of those links. I have no traffic, really like 20 hits a day but a PR 3 because of my external links.
Well, I have had you on my blogroll for a while now and it has been pointing to /blog. I just changed that. Also, I have it linked with the name Cath Lawson. Would you like that changed any other way?
As much as people disagree on this, I believe a higher PR means you are more popular and so you should be higher in SERPs for that reason. But this is only one of the hundreds of different variables in Google’s algorithm.
Jim Gaudet’s last blog post..Hunting in Canada…
Hi Cath: I’m sorry you’ve upset the Google gods. I’m having trouble with my blog–sometimes I can’t access it for the entire day, although I know others are visiting because I can see it on sitemeter. I want to change my host, but it sounds like that’s OK as long as I don’t make any changes to my domain name.
Marelisa’s last blog post..40 Fun Ideas
Hi Cath, going back to something Hunter said about the comment author links not working. I found the problem. It appears the plugin Google Analyticator needs to be updated when you update WordPress to the latest version.
I had the same problem on my blog. Head over to your plugins and do the automatic upgrade for the Google Analyticator plugin and your comment author links should work just fine