The Recent Google Pagerank Phenomenon

So what's all this Google Pagerank buzzing about?

There has been a lot of heated discussion about the Google Pagerank Algorithm and how this latest update which took place on 10/28/07 sometime around 10:00 PM Eastern has actually changed the search engine optimization and search engine marketing industry. It appears that there has been a major change to the calculation and the assigning methods which Google uses to evaluate, judge, and assign pagerank to a website and its internal pages.

The Google Pagerank indicator, which is the green bar you sometimes see on websites and can always find on the Google Toolbar became a publicly available phenomenon sometime around 2004, but the idea behind it started long before at Stanford University by Larry Page and later Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine (Google). The project started in 1995.

The Google description of PageRank is as follows:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important"."

Pagerank has become the target of much scrutiny through the years because as noted above, becoming "important" to Google can literally make or break an online business entity, and thus levels of pagerank can directly effect internet commerce and the decision making process of those who trade and do business online.

Fact - Pagerank can and does affect business volume and revenue.

But this is far from what Pagerank was intended to be used for and I highly doubt very much that Google could foresee what was eventually to become a manipulation of something that clearly belonged to them.

As far as I can tell, or at least in my opinion, Pagerank was created to assign a measure of importance to a website or webpage in an effort to help the Google algorithm rank pages in particular orders based on merit - using the link structure of the web to simulate an actual humans opinion on a website by counting links as votes. The entire web 2.0 craze revolves on user interaction and voting as a means of judging content and Google was clearly the beginner in the field. After the effectiveness of pagerank became reliable, it was introduced visibly to share with internet users and offers a glimpse of what Google would used to make decisions. I believe that to this day it greatly helps people get a quick glimpse and idea of how good a website might be, or at least, what Google thinks of it.

Shortly after it was released, it did not take long for the web community to form a unique and amazing connection to pagerank. Thousands of web based tools hit the net for checking live pagerank levels, when they changed, and even prediction measurements for what pagerank was likely to be next time Google updated it. The craze of Google pagerank going up and down began, with immediate gains in moral when a site owners pagerank increased and significant lows when it dropped. It is plain to see that for some people you can actually see emotional changes linked to pagerank variations as in when pagerank levels were high and then dropped - some feel or felt it was stolen from them. This may sound hard to believe but it is very true.

As Google pagerank began to get manipulated for uses not originally intended by Google, it seemed that they started to change the way pagerank data was assigned and made available. Pagerank updates began to take longer than usual and it seemed that Google would be secretly finding new was of preventing the prediction tools to work properly. Google also changed backlink checking abilities on their search engine and began to hide or find necessary to confuse people as to what was happening with the calculations of pagerank.

Pagerank never seemed to change as significantly as it did this last time, and coincidently the update took the longest time ever to be completed. The time to try and figure out what it all means is upon us. Many will say that the whole pagerank craze is a worthless waste of time, and those who study it or depend on it are contributing to the nonsense and hype which surrounds it, but I disagree. As long as pagerank remains a calculation of a measurement of Google, and as long as it has the ability to effect business volume and revenue it can not reasonably be expected to be ignored.

So what do I think changed this last update?

Google states "Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote." I think this is truer now than ever before. I believe that Google has based the reputation of pagerank and their entire research skill on this exact concept. I believe that if you can not trust the votes, than you can not trust the ranks, and sites that link and are linked to are being measured like never before.

Bottom line: Build and maintain a high quality site. Stop focusing on pagerank as the be all end all factor - cause it's not. Publish quality content focusing closely on editorial content. Keep it clean, and follow closely to search engine guidelines. It's just not worth it to take chances.