Pagerank is Dead! Or Is It?
If there’s one aspect of SEO that causes countless arguments and pointless slanging matches it’s the subject of Pagerank. I guess if you are reading this you are looking for a definitive answer on whether or not Pagerank really is dead, well read on.
The latest Pagerank talking shop started with Google’s announcement about removing Pagerank from Google Webmaster Tools. This has been wrongly interpreted as Google no longer using Pagerank to measure the importance of pages. In Google’s own words;
“PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.”
So where does most of the confusion surrounding Pagerank come from? In my experience people cite the simple fact that in a SERP it’s common to see a Pagerank 5 page below a Pagerank 3 page, for example. So is this evidence that Pagerank doesn’t mean anything? Yeah sure, in the same way that a Porsche 911 beating a Range Rover around a race track is proof that in all situations the Porsche is a better car.
Pagerank is ONE metric of many used by Google when ranking pages for a search. How important a metric is anybody’s guess, Google won’t tell you and nobody outside Google, and probably most people inside Google, don’t know the answer.
So let’s look at some examples:
Search Phrase – Car Insurance
Phrase Match Volume* – 3,550,000
Top Ten Results Pagerank** – 6,6,5,5,6,5,5,4,4,5
Search Phrase – Cheap Flights
Phrase Match Volume* – 5,000,000
Top Ten Results Pagerank** – 6,6,5,8,7,6,5,6,6,4
Search Phrase – City Break
Phrase Match Volume* – 74,000
Top Ten Results Pagerank** – 5,5,5,4,5,3,5,4,5,4
Search Phrase – Web Design Software
Phrase Match Volume* – 22,200
Top Ten Results Pagerank** – 9,4,9,5,4,4,5,4,4,4
As discussed above these results show low Pagerank pages performing better than high Pagerank pages. But does this mean Pagerank is dead? Not from where I’m sitting. It suggests to me that some pages Google doesn’t regard as highly as others in absolute terms have both content and a link profile that suggests they match the search criteria. It’s that simple.
By removing the Pagepank measure from WMT I think Google are suggesting website owners stop obsessing about Pagerank and perhaps even more importantly stop buying links from high Pagerank sites.
Of course, all the above is speculation, as is everyone else’s mutterings on the subject but to me it makes more sense than declaring Pagerank is dead. Pagerank is central to Google’s whole reason for being, it’s always been misinterpreted and Google are trying to address this.
*Google Keyword Tool, UK results – **Google UK search engine
neo
According to your research “Low Pagerank pages performing better then high Pagerank pages.” and I think this is true, I watched this so many times.
Some website owners prefer to buy links or exchange links form high Pagerank pages, they hyperlink their keywords there and this help them to getting the rank of the keywords. I still confused about the result. They achieve the rank and also getting the Pagerank of their website.
How can it possible?
If Google suggest to stop buying links then why it shows the Pagernk as this show the value of the webpage?
admin
Perhaps Google shows Pagerank in the toolbar to demonstrate how much is trusts the page, this in turn helping others to evaluate if they should trust the page.
d
Cristian
These kind of posts should appear more often throughout the SEO community!
There are some webmasters that simply live an die by PageRank without acknowledging, as you said, that there are many variables in Google’s ranking algorithm.
There are some basic aspects about SEO that are overlooked by SEOs, like:
> Google ranks webpages and not websites;
> each page has a natural PageRank tto start with;
> the Toolbar PR not only is outdated but it’s not even the real page rank of a webpage;
> PR flow within a website is as important as PR flowing into the site;
> linking out with dofollow links doesn’t lead you to PageRank bankruptcy.
For those seeking more info about PageRank, I’ve made recently a post on my blog. Here’s its link:
http://trafficcpanel.com/848/pagerank-insites-that-seo-marketers-must-know-and-apply/
Hope it enriches your SEO perspective!
Great post, Redevo!
Cheers,
Cristian
Basic Websites
There’s a lot of confusion around PageRank. I think a common misconception is that a site with a higher pagerank will show up higher in search results than one with a lower pagerank. I would have thought that Pagerank is related to search results in some way but if you think about it your Pagerank remains constant (not taking account when Google updates it) despite the fact that your site might show up for different keywords.
jgh
Unless that’s some highly-specific technical term I’ve not come across yet, or a bad pun that’s just gone waaay over there, that should be ‘insight’.
Important rule of content: ensure no spelling mistakes in URL and title.
Vic
Hello. I have read a lot about SEO tool and methods and I’ve applied them on my site for more than 8 months, but is no good result. Can anybody help me to say why? Here is my website link: http://www.bergen-limo.com/