What do you make of this PageRank hullabaloo?

Posted 28 October 2007, by Aaron

PageRank hullbaloo

Even the less observant amongst us wont fail to have noticed the recent disquiet emanating from the blogosphere concerning that little green bar we all love to hate. One minute it’s down, the next it’s up, leaving many bloggers in something of a stir.

For the benefit of those oblivious, here’s a quick recap:

At the end of September David Airey reported being punished by Google for selling text link ads and trying to game search engine positioning. As far as I’m aware David didn’t actually take a PR hit put was being positioned a lot lower in search results than he should have been. David subsequently had his penalty reversed by generally being quite mature and sensible (removing the offending links and kissing big G’s ass ).
Early October Andy Beard confirmed that Google were applying PageRank deductions to some blogs. Andy’s very SEO-savvy community speculated that the deductions were related to selling text link ads and possibly doing paid reviews.
Last Thursday it seemed the world and their dog got slapped with a PageRank penalty including some very prominent blogs such as ProBlogger and Engadget. Andy Beard compiled a comprehensive list of those punished and speculation suggested that some of these sites are being punished for massive interlinking between blog networks.
Today it seems that Google has completed its quarterly update of the PageRank. Many of those punished earlier in the month have regained either all or some of their PR losses. Some have lost even more! Once again, head over to Andy Beard’s blog for a comprehensive run down. Andy’s done a great job of keeping on top of the story as it unfolds.

What do I make of this to-do?

It is clear to me that Google are making a very loud statement, although I actually haven’t fared too badly. I don’t sell text links, don’t do paid reviews, and don’t interlink massively between ‘associate’ blogs. There’s been no penalties for me and today I actually saw a slight PR increase from three to four.

Personally I don’t pay much heed to PageRank as I don’t sell any advertising and thus have no need to assert my worth with these kinds of metrics. Obviously I’m all for seeing more traffic coming here from search engines so it will be interesting to see what difference (if any) this little increase has on my Google traffic.

I do have a certain amount of sympathy for Google. They have a right to protect their position as the number one search engine by protecting the integrity of their search results, and all of the activities identified above do affect organic search results. And what’s more, I don’t have much sympathy for those bloggers who put that bloody awful word, monetization, first and foremost and tread dangerously close to the thin and wobbly spam-line.

But it’s not as black and white as people using the weight of their wallets to climb search engine results. Whose to say that a text link ad or a paid review is not relevant? The fact that it is paid for doesn’t make it irrelevant by default. The same goes for blog networks: by their very nature, the interlinking is between similar and relevant blogs.

The unanswered questions…

If a blogger doesn’t declare that a link or review is paid, how can Google monitor whether it is paid for?
Therefore, will this not just force bloggers to camouflage their text link ads within their blogrolls and be more discreet about paid reviews?
Or are blogrolls against Google’s terms as well? If so 99% of bloggers should have a PR penalty now!
What about the DoFollow blog brigade - are they treading on thin ice too?

Google are notoriously bad at coming forward and engaging with the web-public, but if ever there was a time for one of their trademark carefully worded blog articles, now is the time. As much as Google have a right to protect their business, they also have a responsibility, as a near-monopoly, to be upfront and clear with the web community. Google has absolutely no right to play games with peoples livelihoods!

Related articles:

Tags:DoFollow, Google, PageRank, SEO, Spam, Text Link Ads

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9 fantastic comments

When you start going into cyclic calculations of PageRank, then using Dofollow can have an effect, though it is probably a lot less than having a blogroll.

I moderate my comments, it can take a lot of time on posts receiving 100 trackbacks and 100 comments, but at the same time a large postion of the links I receive are from community members on a daily basis.

The community spirit you can build up around a blog helps you survive even the biggest penalties.

Dofollow doesn’t make community, but it can be a catalyst.

Well, I had a page rank of zero; now it’s up to 6. Not that I really care, of course. I don’t sell ads, so why should I care–or, am I missing something?

Wonderful image, btw!

John your blog is phenomenally successful because it has filled a niche that was wasn’t adequately supported, and provides high quality valuable information.

With the right planning it could easily turn into a million dollar business with lead generation for specialist services and products.

The design niche if full of pagerank heavy sites I think mainly because of templates with links back to the designer, and you benefit from that juice.

I had to be very nice, and back-track a fair bit, in order to get my penalty reversed. Perhaps the re-inclusion request would’ve taken effect without the extra effort I put in, but I’m happy I did what I did in order to get my Google rankings back.

It’s clear, and a lot of others have already said, that you shouldn’t rely on Google, which is completely right. Google can, however, be a big help in pulling in some extra clients.

The PR update bumped my site from a 4 to a 5, and it’s no surprise that John’s iLT blog hit a 6 on the first go. Great job, John.

Andy, great work keeping track of all that’s happening of late. You’re keeping a lot of others well-informed.

Thanks, Andy. Are you serious? Perhaps we need to chat.

Andy - Cheers for stopping by and adding your wisdom. I’ve just installed your nofollowdupes plugin btw, so many thanks for creating it.
Johno - I can imagine your eyes lighting up when you read Andy’s post. Don’t forget us when you’re rich and famous!

David - I think you did absolutely the right thing, and in reality I think the whole process couldn’t have done you much harm because it got a lot of people talking about Google and linking to you. You say we shouldn’t rely solely on Google, which is fine, but Google wield so much traffic power that I think it difficult to get by without relying on them. Which is why I think that with that power, Google have an added responsibility which they don’t always appreciate.

Johno, I know you have very quickly established a niche audience, and there is a lot of money in the niche.
As you start to gain more search traffic by targeting more money terms (tactfully so as not to alienate your audience)

A lot of careful thought has to go into the monetization, whether it be affiliate programs, brand based advertising or consulting to mention just a few ideas, but one thing I would suggest is to somehow build up an email mailing list, with incentivized subscriptions with a free special report.

Such a mailing list will be far more responsive than concentrating on RSS subscribers.

PageRank matters for how often Google’s spider returns to your page and how much of your content it will index (the higher the PR, the more pages it will consume). It doesn’t determine how high your site appears in the rankings. Some will argue that it is still a part of the algorithm, however, it’s a very small part of over 100 variables that determines SERP positioning.

Justin - The other thing of course, is that advertisers pay more money for a higher page rank, despite as you correctly point out it’s not that relevant in terms of search engine positioning.

What do you make of this PageRank hullabaloo?

What do I make of this to-do?

The unanswered questions…

9 fantastic comments

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