Google Toolbar PR Update

I originally wrote this as an ‘Asides’ but as I’ve had chance to catch up on a few blogs and see the fuss this is causing I thought I’d chuck in my tuppence worth properly.

Seems like on the 26th October, Google did a toolbar PageRank update. A few big names in blogging have been hit badly and as such we have conspiracy theorists talking about how much Google hates them, why it must be because of factor xyz and so on. I fail to see why Google would sit there browsing the web cherry-picking bloggers to specifically target, downsizing their PR with a cackle of “hahaha” and so forth… but there we go.

I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that the rank displayed in the toolbar is not necessarily an indication of the actual rank of any given website. In fact, the toolbar rank is updated so infrequently that your rank at any one time could be months old therefore this “sudden” drop in rank is likely to be anything but!

Shit happens. If you’ve been dropped, try improving your content and internal link structure. Get rid of the crap that bloats your pages in favour of relevant content. Look at how your pages are named, who’s linking to you and who you’re linking to. If all of that doesn’t work, you’ve got some work to do.

Me? Well, I’m still a PR6, my restructured pages have been updated here and at tutorialtastic/the qbee with PR5 and PR4s. I’ve got nothing to complain about ;D

24 comments so far

  1. Amber said:
    On 27 Oct at 11:31 am

    Yes, they sit there saying, ‘God, this eejit is annoying, lets move him down’. Of course. Although I must say a few well placed words for one of my blogs has gotten it 4 times the amount of hits the rest have. The problem lies with me and not Google!

  2. Rhys said:
    On 27 Oct at 11:34 am

    I got marked down to PR3, but my traffic has shot up. Go figure ;) I may have an idea why. I don’t think it’s because of paid links (one of my sites has a large amount of paid links, and it’s gone from a 4 to a 5, and another has gone from a 2 to a 3). One thing I am happy with is Fair Review, it’s now sitting pretty on a 4 :)

  3. Carly said:
    On 27 Oct at 12:09 pm

    I know you posted once before your top 5 tips for SEO but I’d love to read a full tutorial on it Jem, ya know if you’re feeling uninspired and need something to write about! Or can you point me in the right direction to some articles…? i’ve googled a few times and know some basics but I’d love to read a good article on it!

  4. Rachael said:
    On 27 Oct at 1:15 pm

    Doesn’t a lot of it have to do with selling links or something? *isn’t really sure* All I know is that “the powers at be” tell me http://www.calmbanana.co.uk has a PR of 4. Yay for me!

  5. Jem said:
    On 27 Oct at 1:17 pm

    I got marked down to PR3, but my traffic has shot up. Go figure That’s probably down to all those other whiners linking to you because you’ve ranted about Google too :P

  6. Grant Mc said:
    On 27 Oct at 1:27 pm

    Well after getting my site back up and running i had a mysterious page rank of 6, i didn’i believe it and done a few checks it was true, my PR was 6. Just checked it now though and its down to a respectable 3!

  7. Vixx said:
    On 27 Oct at 2:12 pm

    FA.com is has a PR 6, but I have no idea what it was before as I’d never checked. :P Not much bothered by it. lol V xx

  8. Carly said:
    On 27 Oct at 3:14 pm

    I don’t even understand! lol

  9. Daniel said:
    On 27 Oct at 4:13 pm

    I went up to 3 from the N/A. Hopefully, I can even better improve this next time around in my upcoming revamp. What exactly will a Pagerank increase do for you anyway?

  10. Belinda said:
    On 27 Oct at 4:41 pm

    I don’t know what my pagerank is and I don’t care either. O_o

  11. Rhys said:
    On 27 Oct at 5:00 pm

    Probably. And by probably, I mean definitely :P

  12. Rhys said:
    On 27 Oct at 9:24 pm

    You do realise, with PR6, you’re twice as popular as Youtube, which is PR3. ;)

  13. Kaylee said:
    On 27 Oct at 10:45 pm

    I don’t even know what my PR is :( *lonely*

  14. Kelly said:
    On 28 Oct at 4:49 am

    I like to think I’ve got some okay content, but my pagerank is probably really poor. :(

  15. CHESSNOID said:
    On 28 Oct at 4:52 am

    I am a new blogger of about 3 months going on 4. I have been assigned a page rank for the first time. How exactly does this benefit me? I don’t really get any traffic from google as far as my stats tell me.

  16. Rilla said:
    On 28 Oct at 8:11 am

    My blog has always been on a 4 for PR, and frankly I don’t care much for it. Does it really matter a whole lot? :/

  17. Vera said:
    On 28 Oct at 3:52 pm

    As long as a search for lianko turns up my site as the first result, I’m happy. I’ll have to insert my name more, so that a search for vera will also make it turn up… But the idea of Google scouring the web with a clipboard, making notes on who is the IT, and who needs to fail… just LOL. I never tried PR, it’s much more rewarding to see new referrers pop up in my tracker :)

  18. Christina said:
    On 28 Oct at 11:40 pm

    Hiya, Just wanted to say I really like your re-design. (you have prolly done it ages ago, but I haven’t checked in for a long while). Colours much cooler thant he blue header, but I think before that it was grey w/ pink accents? Can’t remember, but am loving the new :) Cheers – Christina

  19. Narasimhan said:
    On 29 Oct at 12:31 pm

    PR Upgdate on 26th October 07, gave my blog a shift from PR 0 to PR 1.

  20. Rise said:
    On 30 Oct at 11:50 am

    I am the only person that I know who has even heard of PR (as far as I know), and so I know little about it. I have the Google toolbar, and my PR has now gone up to 4, 3 and 2, from 3 N/A and 0. I’m pretty happy with that. I don’t exactly know how PR works, but I’m focussing on getting it to go up, because if the PR goes up, then it suggests that my site is improving. I’m also working on getting more referrals from Google than from affiliates, because I realise now that affiliates just give you hits, it’s not like the people that visit your site through them are visiting other than because the site they were previously on links it (so perhaps reccommends it). Hmm.

  21. Rise said:
    On 30 Oct at 11:56 am

    Well, I don’t know why I posted two comments…I actually came here to ask you what course you did at university? I’m applying soon, and I want to do something related to websites and the internet, but I’m not exactly sure as to what.

  22. Bex said:
    On 31 Oct at 12:37 am

    My site has gone back up too, but not to what it was before. I was PR5 then I went down to PR2 for some reason, and now I’m at PR4. I need to do a big tidy-up of my site anyway, it’s an utter stodge.

  23. Sambit said:
    On 06 Nov at 5:24 am

    I am maintaining a blog on SEO Techniques. The PR of my Blog was 0 and now it is 2.

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