2 Reasons Google PageRank Still Matters
March 17th, 2008 by CourtSome of the most heated debates I’ve seen in the comments of Court’s Internet Marketing School have been directly related to Google and Google PageRank. This topic seems to bring out the full gamut of emotions - people want to bomb Google when their PageRank goes down and want to do a triple gainer off the couch when their PageRank goes up.
What Is Google PageRank?
PageRank is the system that Google uses to determine the value of pages online. Each web page that Google knows about is ranked 0-10, 10s being strong and 0s being weak. PageRank isn’t the only factor that determines Google’s rankings, but is a small part of the method used by Google to determine which sites get the most favorable rankings in their search engine.
Does PageRank Really Matter?
Back in October, Maki from DoshDosh.com wrote a compelling post called Google PageRank Doesn’t Matter. Can We Stop Talking about it Now?. In that post, Maki talked about some of the reasons PageRank shouldn’t matter:
- If a change in PageRank results in a revenue decrease on your site, it’s your own fault. You should not be selling ads based on your PageRank.
- There are hundreds of ways to build your brand and traffic. Relying on one based partially on PageRank isn’t at all necessary.
- PageRank is a webmaster fetish. Regular readers likely will not know what PageRank is and will definitely not evaluate your site based on your PageRank. They will evaluate your site based on your ability to provide the info-fix they need.
At first thought (certainly if you compare the title of this post to the title of Maki’s) you may believe that Maki and I are on different sides of this issue. The honest truth is that I agree with Maki and believe that PageRank is still useful.
If any of you believe that your success will be determined by one metric like PageRank, you are very wrong. If my site was smacked to PR0 tomorrow I wouldn’t stop believing in it. If DoshDosh.com was smacked to PR0 tomorrow, Maki would continue to build the site and it would continue to flourish. If you continue to believe, you will continue to flourish.
That said, I can still see two reasons why having a healthy PageRank can help your site:
- Branding - People that know about PageRank will be influenced by a strong ranking. If they see a PR6 the first time they visit your site, they may give your site a better look than they would if they had seen PR0. People that know what PageRank is will often be individuals that also have websites and weblogs so this factor can increase the amount of sites that link to you. This will increase direct traffic and search engine rankings for your site.
- Organic Rankings - While a truly good site can survive without good search traffic, why in the world would you want it to? I get a steady influx of traffic each day from Google and hope that this will always be the case. The higher my PageRank gets, the higher my traffic will be from Google. Note: this isn’t meant to mean that this is the only factor that influences rankings - it isn’t.
How do you increase your PageRank? Let’s talk it over tomorrow.
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March 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am
If you continue to believe, you will continue to flourish.
I don’t care what Google says either and you make an excellent point. That is what I try to do everyday especially in my Niche. I don’t want tons of just traffic, I want clients that need my service.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:26 am
A couple of good points but it someone judges your site simply because it has a good page rank then it seems a bit shallow.
Considering we don’t know the equation behind page rank its pretty useless for anything more than a rough guide.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Hey Pete,
I agree with you that judging a site by PageRank is a bit shallow. That said, it still happens and if it happens you can use it to your advantage.
Also, we actually know the formula behind PageRank:
http://courtneytuttle.com/2007/06/15/the-beginners-guide-to-top-google-rankings/
March 18th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Surely, the importance will depend on what one wants to do with the site. If one wants to aggressively market the site as an exciting media for ads, then page rank will matter. Not otherwise.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:54 am
I was one of the people who joined in with the whole “it doesn’t matter” thing but still, I kinda like having a PR5 now - it just looks nice
March 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Thank you for being honest Caroline. I bet it looks pretty to the people that visit your site as well, which is why I’m not able to say 100% that it doesn’t matter. On at least some level it has to be helping you out.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
@Pete - I agree that it seems shallow, but sometimes it’s all we have to go by.
When visiting a site for the first time, glancing at Alexa & Google PageRank gives a quick indicator of how established and popular the site is. Yes, Alexa & PageRank might be flawed but it’s better than having no indicator.
@Court - Thanks for sharing these points.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I tend to look at the design, how well written the content is, the sort of links on the page.
For instance when I first stumbled on this page I could instantly see a good design, a well written article, a lot of tags and archives and some unobtrusive ads.
I got the feeling straight away this wasn’t a bad site all without looking at a PR.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Pete thanks for your honesty. There are actually a lot of different methods that people use to determine value, including the ones you have mentioned.
You mentioned that you look at how well written the content is. This is, of course, very important but also assumes that you are actually reading the content. I simply don’t think that we can discount that fact that many sites have high PageRank because they are great sites. There’s a reason that DoshDosh has PR6.
A great site that has a really poor design is StevePavlina.com. When I first came across Steve’s site, I honestly only gave it a chance because it was at the time PR6. The site isn’t that visually appealing. Once I started to read I found out that it was great - but again, I don’t read every site I come across. Why would I?
I’m not saying that this should be the only factor that we use to make this determination, it isn’t. I’m simply stating that there are plenty of people that will use this methodology so we have to keep it in mind.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I want all of you to pay very close attention to what I am about to say:
BRANDING IS 100 TIMES MORE IMPORTANT THAN PAGE RANK..
Sorry for yelling.
Would you rather be Kraft Foods or would you rather have a high page rank for “Mac and Cheese?”
The Masked Millionaire
http://www.TheMaskedMillionaire.com
March 17th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
If you dig into my site I think you’ll find that I have written extensively about branding.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Why should they be mutually exclusive?
March 17th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Courtney,
I expected you to know that visible PageRank (the number you see in the toolbar or what have you) is absolutely meaningless when it comes to organic search traffic. It seems like you know your stuff when it comes to SEO so I was very surprised to see your second point.
Your statement that “The higher my PageRank gets, the higher my traffic will be from Google.” is absolutely and 100% incorrect. Visible PageRank is simply a snapshot of your PR at a given point of time. By the time Google updates it, it’s often several months old. I’m fairly certain that Google still uses some form of PR to rank sites (perhaps the rumored TrustRank) but they absolutely do not use the PR that the show us.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Lol Ben do you really believe that I don’t understand the difference between PageRank and visible PageRank?
Your visible PageRank is PR3. Since the last PR update was less than one month ago, you are pretty dang close to PR3. Yeah, you might be a 3.2 or a 3.4 or a 2.6, but no matter how you cut the cards you’re going to be pretty close to a 3 in ranking power.
Visible PageRank shows you exactly what your PageRank was on the day that snapshot was taken. On that day, you were a PR3, unless you have some kind of visible penalty - I would have no way of knowing this.
I hope you realize that you are the one that made the jump to talking about visible PageRank because this entire post talks exclusively about true PageRank. If you are sitting at PR3 (or possibly PR4) right now and you improve to PR5 or PR6, your rankings in Google will improve drastically.
You said that this belief is “absolutely and 100% incorrect”. As you know Ben, I have always been very open to discussion but your arguments here make it sound like you haven’t been in the game for very long. This isn’t meant to be offensive but once you have seen a site get to PR6 or PR7 you will see the difference for yourself.
By the way, if I wanted to talk about visible PageRank in this post, I would have said ‘visible PageRank’.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Ok, but when you say PageRank, the vast majority of the online population thinks of the little green pixels they see in the toolbar. So, when you’re talking about something OTHER than toolbar PR, it pays to make that distinction.
My site bloggingexperiment.com actually is under a penalty but that’s really neither here nor there.
I’ve been in SEO for a few years now and I’ve SEO’ed sites all over the PR scale for some pretty competitive terms. So please don’t give me the “once you get there you’ll see” speech.
For example, a site I have open in my one of my tabs is wpthemespot.com. The site is currently ranked #5 in Google for the term wordpress themes and has a PR of 7. And yet, the site above them, themespack.com is a PR 4. While there may still be an internal metric (perhaps even called PR) that is used, it’s just one of many factors and is certainly not the largest factor in determining rank. And yes, I still maintain my assertion that visible or toolbar PR is worthless no matter how recent the update was.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Ok Ben I’ll try to make that distinction more clear. I would appreciate it if you would be more respectful when bringing up discussions on my site.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Courtney, you do know that Ben has a huge point, even if he didn’t express it well? Yes, if you are building links from tons of smaller ones, and they all have decent anchor text and are form sites that it is desirable to get links from, as your PageRank increases you should expect your rankings, and therefore traffic, to increase. However, a single PR8 link from the right kind of page can easily result in you having an actual (and at the next update, visible) PR7 on your homepage. Depending on competition, you might even gain top 10 rankings for whatever anchor text is on that one link. However, a single link isn’t going to be enough to power your entire site, and unless you do hit top 10 for that one phrase (and even then, only if it is a whopper) then it will not directly translate into traffic.
I think Ben took exception with the way you stated “The higher my PageRank gets, the higher my traffic will be from Google” as an absolute, without any explanation at all into why it works, and what the exceptions could be. When you say it the way you did, then it is actually wrong. It’s statements like that from bloggers that people listen to which cause misconceptions to be spread as gospel in the search engine community.
No offense.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
if you are building links from tons of smaller ones
Sorry, meant to say that if you are building PageRank using tons of smaller links.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, I was legitimately surprised at what I read. There is so much false or out-dated information passed around as SEO tips and it frustrates me when I see bad information given out from otherwise very good reliable sources. As I said, I enjoy your blog quite a bit and you’ve always seemed to be on top of it when it came to SEO. In fact, I’ve applied some of the ideas you discuss in your keyword sniping series. However, tying pagerank, even “real” or non-toolbar PR, to organic traffic is at best overly simplistic.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Michael, Ben obviously believed that I was speaking in an absolute but I can tell you that I wasn’t. Did I say that PageRank is the only thing that influences search rankings?
Take two sites that are identical in every way. They have the same titles, keyword density, page count, internet link structure, PageRank, age, and everything else that influences rankings. It’s safe to assume that since the rankings factors are the same, the search traffic will be the same, right?
Let’s say for example purposes that the examples sites are PR3 sites. To be more specific, let’s say that the homepages of the sites are PR3, which means there are probably also plenty of PR2s, PR1s, and PR0s.
Now let’s say that for some reason, site #2 gets some additional links that increase the PageRank of the homepage to PR6. Keep in mind that everything else stays the same as site #1. This means that the content and titles and everything else will remain almost identical between site #1 and site #2.
However, all the sudden site #2 has PR6 on the homepage, which results in a drastic increase of PageRank within the site. We now have a PR6 homepage to go along with quite a few PR5 pages, followed by PR4, PR3, PR2, PR1, and PR0 pages.
The traffic will now be significantly different between the two sites now Michael. What is the only thing that has changed? The PageRank of site #2.
I lost Ben because he believed that I was saying that visible PageRank was the only factor that influenced rankings. If I wanted to state that this was the case that’s exactly what I would have said. This is what I did say, “The higher my PageRank gets, the higher my traffic will be from Google.”
I think it’s kind of funny Michael that you proved my point for me by creating two different examples that would increase traffic based on this principle. You showed that the statement is true. Both examples would result in increases of both PageRank and ranking ability.
You gave a good example with the PR8 link, except it’s missing something that will contribute positively to Google rankings. If you were to get a PR8 link that creates PR7 for your homepage, this will increase the PR and relevancy of many different pages in your site. This means that you don’t necessarily have to nail that one keyword to get a significant benefit from that link.
No matter how large or small this benefit is, there will still be a benefit, which again supports the statement in question.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
No, see, I think you’re still missing the point… to put it simply, not all PageRanks are created equal.
You quite misunderstood what I was saying, I’m afraid. Both examples would result in increases again implies some sort of guarantee that just is not there.
-Michael
March 17th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Michael Google obviously uses an algorithm to determine rankings. By increasing any of the factors that contribute to the end result, you can increase the end result.
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1= 20
What happens if you change any of these 1s to a 2? It increases the end result. In the case of Google rankings, we are dealing with a mathematical formula that determines a web page’s strength against other pages. It doesn’t matter which part of the equation we improve because improving any part of the equation will increase the page’s strength. I agree that there are a lot of different ways that we can do this.
If you want to talk about this on the phone please email me your number. My track record when it comes to SEO speaks for itself. I have been able to get rankings that are quite frankly very difficult to get. I could compare rankings between our sites since they’re about the same age, but let’s not go there.
I’m always up for a good debate here but in this case this has turned into a discussion where you believe what you believe and I believe what I believe. People are going to have to take a look at who has the most credibility and success in this area to see who’s correct.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Absolutely. Perhaps a joint post on a matrix design?
March 20th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I really don’t think that it matters whether you are talking about the “toolbar” or “visible” Pagerank.
It wouldn’t really even matter if the Google toolbar showed an accurate, live pagerank value, because the “visible” pagerank is just a shadow of what pagerank really is.
I liked Ben’s example:
Because It shows that the number really is meaningless when it comes to ranking.
I’m not saying that pagerank is not important. I’m sure we’ve all read the original pagerank paper, and know how pagerank is passed from site to site.
But Pagerank is only 1 of hundreds(?) of variables that make up Google’s algorithm, and what most people don’t take into consideration is how that pagerank is really broken down.
That PR 7 site has obviously gotten a lot of sites linking to it to get that high PR number, but how many of those sites/ pages that link to the PR 7 site are relevant to the search for “wordpress themes”?
When you think about it that way, you could break that little green PR meter down into separate sections for different keywords/ themes. For that PR 7 site, maybe only 10 percent of it’s PR is relevant to the “wordpress themes” search, where as maybe the PR 4 site may have a lot more links/ PR relevant to the term “wordpress themes”, therefore it ranks better for that term.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Court,
I have heard and seen that just because your page rank is a certain number on the front, main page of your site, each other page (or post) could be a different page rank. I believe this is why it is called “page rank” not “site rank”.
I’m confused how a high PR link to your main page can influence other pages in your site.
Secondly, is it true that your PR changes daily? I read it someplace, I don’t remember where, that your page rank is constantly changing based upon Googles reindexing and deindexing sites on a daily basis.
Any validity to that? I guess it would explain the statement that your PR is just a snapshot in time of when the update took place.
Thanks!
Elliott
March 17th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Ok let me explain these questions, which by the way are very, very good questions.
This happens because your homepage is linking to many of the other pages in your site. For example, my homepage is linking to all of the posts that appear in the three boxes at the top of my site. It passes PageRank to those pages. For this reason, most of those posts are PR4 pages.
Yes, this is true. PR changes all the time and the PR we see in the toolbar is simply a snapshot of what the PR was during that exact moment in time. If you were to get a really strong link today, it would count towards the PR of your site as soon as Google found and indexed that link. However, you wouldn’t be able to see the change in the toolbar until the next time Google updated visible PageRank.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Cool, thanks for clarifying what I was thinking.
I am also assuming this is why it is important to find “do follow” sites (blogs, forums, etc.) to help build links back to your site.
But, don’t “no follow” links count towards anything?
March 17th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
@Niche Blogging, nofollowed links are basically ignored by the search engines. They don’t pass PageRank and don’t affect site rankings etc.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Well said Ben, that’s correct.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Thanks Ben. I wasn’t sure if they counted for anything at all other than maybe getting an occassional person to see it and click over to the link.
Guess I better get busy finding those “do follow” links!
How does Google determine what counts as a quality link then? I have one niche site that I have searched and left comments and links on “do follow” blogs and forums for this niche, but they are not showing up in the links for this site.
It has been several months, and after this last round of link updates, still nothing, and these are active and popular blogs and forums. Any clue what gives with that?
March 17th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Oh boy, those aren’t small questions.
First of all, let me clarify, any link that drives traffic is worth having whether it’s nofollowed or not.
As for what Google considers a quality link, well that’s kind of the secret sauce. I’d generally say a link from any site that is in good standing with Google, preferably that’s also related to your site or topic.
As for why they don’t show up, how are you looking for them? Simply doing link: searches will only return some of the links that Google counts for your site.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Ben,
Thanks for the answers. I agree that any link will help, whether it is followed or not. I guess it depends on if the other site can bring you traffic (i.e. related topic).
And yes, I have done link:search but also a few other tools. Is there a good tool to really show all incoming links?
It seems that Yahoo link:search provides a more extensive list of backlinks, it is just hard to tell if they are relevant or not for Google.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:46 am
Thank you so much Court for breaking it down. I have been researching some SEO stuff recently for my new blog, and I have seen a few people mention PageRank not mattering any more… but I never took the time to read their posts about why. Thanks for the nice, simple, easy breakdown (as you always do with every topic) so that your readers can learn stuff in the easiest way possible.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:54 am
I have to say Ben and Michael seem to be getting a little too emotional about this. Hahaha…can’t we all just get along? No I do appreciate the enthusiasm, but I guess I just see Court’s point a lot stronger saying it is a factor (not the only one as he noted in the sentence after) and I don’t see how you two have clearly stated your point saying it has absolutely no bearing or maybe I am reading the statements incorrectly. Maybe we should we wait for part 2 before getting in a tizzy.
Help me understand this…if you have a link to your page with an anchor text wouldn’t that help your authority with that keyword in Google and wouldn’t that mean raising authority also as far as PageRank goes (not visible PR initially because it is slow like you mention Ben)? I do understand that certain links for certain keywords means more traffic for some more than other links for other keywords in the search, but being that PageRank measures your authority wouldn’t it naturally mean more traffic even if it was a smaller increase? Now I agree this is not absolute because you might be ranked high for a keyword that no one searches for, but it seems that PR is about the whole spectrum of all of your links to that page and not just one keyword. It would seem to me that going from a PR 1 to a PR 6 would mean more than just simply one link, but numerous links with numerous keywords. But even if it was with just one keyword it should raise your rankings with that keyword and make your site more available to searchers(which is a step toward more traffic). And just because a site is ranked higher on a keyword with a lower PR for a certain keyword doesn’t mean that the page with the higher PR doesn’t dominate on another keyword that we may not even know about.
Simply put: More related links and age of a site equals higher authority, which means higher rankings for targeted keywords of the links on that page and at the same time higher PageRank (even if that is .1).
Without being offensive, it just seems like you both read too much into the post and made assumptions of Court’s statements based on your feelings, although your points seem to be valid and worth noting (and Court agrees) that there is a lot more to it than just PR, but it is a factor in the growth of a site. So if it is a factor (even a small one) then it is worth paying attention to.
If it isn’t a factor at all, then why does Google continue to institute it being that would go against their credibility that they have built up with their search engine and what are they trying to accomplish by it? If they are not using authority of pages to measure PageRank then what do they use to measure PageRank? (This is a great conversation by the way, wish I could have gotten involved sooner)
March 18th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Congratulations on reaching over 2k RSS subscribers!
Martin
March 18th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Long time no see Martin! How goes it bro?
March 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Hey Court,
It’s going both good and bad thanks. My blog got hacked and had a load of hidden porn links placed hidden in the footer. So getting no traffic from Google any more. Decided to just leaving that site to simmer for a while and concentrate on other niche projects which are working out really well.
I’m really enjoying your blog Court, one of the best/inspiring marketing blogs out there. Keep up the good info!
March 18th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I like how you break it down. Sometimes we can think too much about PR, but when we do this we forget about the end users.
Great Post!
March 19th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I don’t think it’s that powerful for Branding, even though more savvy visitors may look at the PR. If you content is valuable though, it doesn’t matter how high your PR is. The typical consumer isn’t even going to look at it when they visit a site, if they even know what it is. In niches like internet marketing it could have a much greater impact than a non-tech niche.
March 24th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Great info Court. I read a lot of times that PR does nt matter any more, it may not have much to do with SERPs but still shows the importance of the page.