Happy New Year! & Thanks Google! (Google Gives Out an Unexpected PageRank Update)
Update (October 2026)
Don’t go looking for that PageRank number today. Google stopped updating the public PageRank score in 2013 and removed it completely in 2016, and the Google Toolbar that showed it is long gone. Google still weighs links behind the scenes, but there’s no public score anymore, and looking back I wouldn’t use any single number like this to decide whether a site is safe.
Happy
New
Year!
2009-12-31
16:18:10
by: Jamie Dolan
We’re counting down the hours; 2010 is almost here. I just received some welcome news for the new year.My sites PageRank increased by 2 points. In case you don’t know about Google’s PageRank system, I’ll give you a short explanation.
Google uses a system called PageRank that assigns a “Ranking” or value to web sites from 1 to 10. Many sites on the internet are not rated, which generally indicates that they either are very new and have not been noticed yet or that Google has chosen not to assign the site a Page Rank due to their “secret” criteria. When am established site has no ranking is evident, I suspect it is due to the site being of very poor quality or it is hosting illegal and or stolen content. To quote Wikipedia “PageRank denotes a site’s importance in the eyes of Google”. A site’s PageRank is visible to anyone that has the Google Toolbar (discontinued by Google) installed.
From dbusinessnews.com “Just before New Years Day Google has suddenly shown Google PR (PageRank) update. It is probably the most awaited moment for SEO masters as PR is the barometer in any kind of search engine optimization activity.” According to the article, experts were predicting the next PageRank update to take place some time in January 2010. Google does not disclose the time table for updates to the PageRank system. The article continued with “Enjoy your New Year’s Eve because if your PageRank has increased it will have some great impact for your future search engine rankings.” That is excellent news for those of us that saw an increase in PageRank today. I am looking forward to the increased search engine traffic that will likely result from this PageRank update. The article concluded “Don’t be amazed if you get some more unexpected surprises from Google in 2010.” 2010 is going to be an amazing year for the Internet, keep your eyes open, it’s going to be a blast!
While PageRank is assigned by a computer, it is considered extremely resistant to manipulation attempts and most people consider it a good indicator of the worth of a site. I use the PankRank indicator on a regular basis when searching the Internet. If I want to know if a web site is credible, one of the first things I will look for is if it has PageRank. If a site completely lacks any rankong, I will dig deeper before I trust that site. If a site has one, my personal opinion, and my experience shows that you normally can trust that site to, at a minimum, be safe to browse. I’ve never seen Google list PageRank for a site that has Malware, Badware or similar programs that could cause harm to your computer. While it isn’t a guarantee a site is safe by any means, it does give you a very good place to start.
Thanks Google, it’s good to know I am on the right track!
Thanks everyone for taking the time to read, have a great 2010! I look forward the new year!
Regards,
Jamie Dolan
HUH??
“When no ranking is evident, I suspect it is due to the site being of very poor quality or it is hosting illegal and or stolen content.”
I’m sure the owners of the many tens of thousands of new LEGITIMATE business websites that go live each week will be very happy to hear this – NOT!
Your PR is 2 – just 2. There are many porn sites and warez sites with higher PRs than that. I’d suggest you look into exactly what PR is and not make silly statements about how a low PR is evidence of a website being “very poor quality” or “hosting illegal content”.
You wrote:
“I’m sure the owners of the many tens of thousands of new LEGITIMATE business websites that go live each week will be very happy to hear this – NOT!”
If you look, Right at the top of the article, I explained:
“Many sites on the internet are not rated, which generally indicates that they either are very new and have not been noticed yet or that Google has chosen not to assign the site a Page Rank due to their “secret” criteria.”
I did intend for it to be more clear that what I was try to say was that if well established sites are not getting any PageRank, it makes me think something is suspect (e.g. “very poor quality”). I should have used a better term than “illegal content” as well, as I did want to include illegal content, but was referring more to sites that abuse the system; linking schemes, spamie text, copied material, etc. So I do apologize that was not more clear, the exact meaning on a few things was lost when I had the article edited by a family member who is less technical.
You Wrote:
“Your PR is 2 – just 2. There are many porn sites and warez sites with higher PRs than that. I’d suggest you look into exactly what PR is and not make silly statements about how a low PR is evidence of a website being “very poor quality” or “hosting illegal content”.
I have no doubt that there are many adult sites that are completely legitimate, infact the play boy site has a ranking of 6. I am sure there are many others, so regardless of ones personal opinion of adult sites, I see no reason that the PageRank site should not apply to them if they are LEGAL.
Regarding the “warez” sites, could you give me some examples of these sites your talking about? I would like to see some sites that are doing something illegal that have PageRank. It may very well be possible, that what is why I clearly stated that this was just my opinion and what “I suspect”. If there are sites out there with illegal content that have PageRank, please respond and post them here.
Thanks for your comments. Good luck with earning PageRank for your site. Based on everything I know, and have observed, I believe that the best way to obtain PageRank or other favorable status by the search engines is to play by the rules.
It gets a bit long, but I would suggest you read the Google web master guidelines and make sure your following them as much as possible.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
In reality, I don’t find anything in the Google webmaster guidelines to be very difficult to follow, it basically consists of building a quality site with quality content.
Again Jamie, PR is quite an insignificant factor these days – people used to stress over their PR several years ago – i know i did – when one of my sites dropped from PR7 to PR6, i went looking for a rope! (joking)), however other metrics are much more important. PR is indicative only, just like Alexa.
There are many sites which have been around for years, and still only manage a PR1 or 2. I built a site (you’ll have to take my word for it) which went live on December 15 and its a PR3 already.
I couldnt care if it was a PR1 to be honest. I have another site which i just finished the 2009 analysis on, and its only a PR4 – but it received over 300,000 unique visitors last year.
My point is, PageRank is nothing to be excited about. I didnt even look up the PR on those sites until i read your comments just then.
“In reality, I don’t find anything in the Google webmaster guidelines to be very difficult to follow, it basically consists of building a quality site with quality content.”
100% correct – the architecture of the site and the content are two of the most important factors.
But good content is useless unless people know it exists. Write good (ACCURATE) content and tell people about it – 3/4 of the battle over.
PS – i’m sure Playboy will happy to receive a backlink from you and you are happy to share your PR with them 🙂
Thanks for pointing that out about the link. I forgot that in the comments WP adds the http:// automatically when it sees an address, making it into a live link.