Let’s talk about the recent PageRank update which started nearly two weeks ago and has the SEO/Webmaster community freaking out as usual. I know you have “Green Bar Addiction†but you can’t seem to attend the weekly meetings to rid yourself of the control it has over you.
At least allow me to settle your nerves.
There’s a few SEOs out there who look at testing data from real websites and I’m one of them. First, let me clear up some possible misconceptions of the PageRank update.
1) Google only updates the PageRank number on their toolbar for the public to see about four times a year.
2) When the Toolbar PageRank is updated, it is based on old data, often 10-45 days old from when the update hits. Look at it as your would a stock quote online. You see the “Stock Quote Delayed 20 Minutes†message … and it is the same with PageRank. You don’t see the actual value as Google feels that would give you an unfair advantage and Google doesn’t want that, so they “delay†just like the stock quotes. But Google’s delay is “days or weeks†instead of “minutesâ€.
3) Google continually calculates PageRank and ranks sites based on their complex algorithm. However, these PageRank numbers are for Google’s eyes only. We never see them (see above).
4) Google often downgrades the visible PageRank for sites who typically sell PageRank (link brokers and their partners). However, the actual PageRank is not effected. So traffic levels and rankings stay the same, but revenue from selling links obviously takes a hit.
So what do we learn from the above? Well, we know the PageRank data when it updates is old and it is often inaccurate. Therefore, it can’t be trusted.
Let’s look at real data. Of the nearly 600 domains I track, one-third of the domains had a PageRank 3 or better before the update. This is how they fared after the update:
Before: PR 5.4
After: PR 3.1
That’s a 40% drop. Ouch. And what is even more concerning is the level in which drops and increases happened. Many are saying the “bar has been raisedâ€, meaning, there are more pages in Google’s indexed, thus, Google has to shift the grades in order to account for the influx of new pages. After all, they did this last year. The problem is, Google has FEWER pages indexed today than they did last year, so reason would state that couldn’t be the issue. So I dug a little deeper…
I had quite a few sites which have 20,000+ backlinks and listed as PR5 before the update get downgraded to a PR4, yet I had a few dozen sites thate went from a PR3 to a PR4 with less than 500 backlinks. Now, honestly, how is that possible? So I dug deeper…
I tracked the sites back 10 weeks and analyzed the traffic and rankings. Virtually no significant change. Why that long? I am looking for “blips” in traffic levels to see when the PageRank “data capture” happened. Because if the PageRank went down, logic states traffic should as well, since PageRank is a part of Google’s algorithm. But since the information we see is dated, any traffic change that occurs with the PageRank update is purely coincidental. You could imagine my concern when I looked at the sites that experienced an increase and saw no significant change upward in traffic or rankings.
In discussing these findings with Jason Katzenback, he said, “Looks like PageRank is about as important as Alexa ranking.†Bingo.
If PageRank was a significant factor, you would have seen changes in traffic levels in the sites who had their PageRank taken up a point or down a point within the last ten weeks. It’s been trackable in the past. So why not now? Either PageRank is no longer a factor or Google is getting more aggressive in penalizing sites with their Toolbar PageRank – but in VISIBLE PageRank only.
I’m speaking on the Organic Panel at Search Engine Strategies next month in San Jose, and you can bet I’ll be asking a lot of “why†questions to the engineers from Google.
So, to wrap this up, if your PageRank went down, but your traffic didn’t, relax. Keep marketing your business and follow trusted advice. And if you’re ready for a real big step, uninstall your Google Toolbar and ignore that “green bar†fluctuation. You might be surprised how much more you get accomplished without the “PageRank Distractionâ€.
The main reason I started the SEO Revolution was out of frustration. Frustration at all of the lies and misconceptions that are posted in forums, given as advice in teleconferences, and even taught in live workshops. "So why didn't all of this work?" " Why wasn't my site successful?" " Why am I still stuck in a rut?" 
Alexa is a very powerful tool used to rank web site traffic. We can find out how our web site traffic stacks up against all our competitors.
They are 2 completely different things, but alexa rank should be more important since having a high pagerank doesn’t necessarily mean you are getting a lot of traffic. But you do try to get a higher pagerank in order to get more search engine traffic, so in all reality alexa is more important as the end result of getting a higher pagerank is to get a higher ranking in the search engines in order to get more traffic. But alexa gives you an accurate estimate to how much traffic your getting, so i’m guessing alexa is more important. Bu that’s my perssonal opinion, I prefer alexa
That has to be one of the stupidest comments above. This is exactly why most SEOs suck, they have no clue and think that they can offer “SEO Web Design Services”. What a joke.