Google Changing the PageRank Algorithm?

by Daniel in 378 Comments — Updated Reading Time: 2 minutes

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If things keep at this pace I might rename this blog to Daily Google Tips. Over the last two weeks we have been talking about Google every other day. This time it is the PageRank buzz again.

Both Problogger and Copyblogger, two of the most popular blogs on the niche, announced that their PR dropped from 6 to 4. Previously other authority blogs confirmed that they lost PR, but the suspect was towards paid links. Given that Problogger and Copyblogger are not selling links, it might be just a readjustment on the PR scale.

Some people are arguing that since the PR drop is not generalized, it must be a slap from Google due to practices that conflict with its guidelines. Andy Beard suggested that the sites that got penalized were either selling links or exchanging them inside large blog networks. This is a feasible explanation given that most of the Weblogs, Inc blogs (Engadget above all) were penalized, and they do not sell paid links either.

Here is a list that I gathered with big blogs that supposedly lost PR on this issue:

  • Statcounter (from 10 to 6)
  • Engadget (from 7 to 5)
  • AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)
  • Problogger (from 6 to 4)
  • Copyblogger (from 6 to 4)
  • AdesBlog (from 7 to 5)
  • Search Engine Journal (from 7 to 4)
  • Quick Online Tips (from 6 to 3)
  • Search Engine Roundtable (from 7 to 4)
  • Blog Herald (from 6 to 4)
  • Weblog Tools Collection (from 6 to 4)
  • JohnTP (from 6 to 4)
  • Coolest Gadgets (from 5 to 3)
  • CyberNet News (from 6 to 4)

Update: It looks like mainstream websites that were selling links were also penalized:

  • Washington Post (from 7 to 5)
  • Washington Times (from 6 to 4)
  • Charlotte Observer (from 6 to 4)
  • Forbes.com (from 7 to 5)
  • SFGate.com (from 7 to 5)
  • Sun Times (from 7 to 5)
  • New Scientist (from 7 to 5)
  • Seattle Times (from 6 to 4)

Update 2: After reading through the avalanche of posts on the subject, it appears that this is not a PageRank update but rather a distribution of penalties (either automatic or manual). The theory that the penalized blogs were either selling links or part of a network that used a cross-linking strategy seems to hold.

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378 thoughts on “Google Changing the PageRank Algorithm?”

  1. oh! my god! this is soooo bad. Problogger deserves 10 page rank! I really think that google should stop acting evil and must concentrate on making the things better or rather improving the Pagerank in a way that it doesn’t give too much weight to the paid linksbut penalizing like this is not really good.

    Although, one thing is sure that these sites now really don’t depend on the traffic from google.

    Hey guys..continue selling the links 😀

    Reply
  2. Know More Media has about 100 interlinking blogs and our PageRanks appear not to have changed – nearly all 6’s across the board for the blogs’ home pages.

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  3. ^^^^^^

    How can your page rank drop from a 0 to a 1? Lol

    My page ranks have been rising, but I had never had one until the last update.

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  4. Well let me boo hoo with the rest of you. My blog was PR4 to a PR0 so there you have it. Doing the walk of shame. Until I noticed another one of my sites got a PR4 and I don’t even have content on the site. 🙂 lolol

    I feel better knowing regardless of what Google is doing or NOT there really isn’t one solution that makes sense. Therefore doe PR really matter? Sure if you are boasting about it, but be afraid very afraid, one day it won’t be there anymore.

    Reply
  5. PR might be a slight indication of important your site might be, but it really doesn’t mean everything, like one comment above that you get PR 3 sites outranking PR 5 sites! Google has about 200 different factors influencing where your site would be on the SERP’s.

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  6. I don’t know what changes Google made to the algorithm, I had quite a few sites drop and a few that picked up page rank. It’s always so hard to tell which sites are going to pick up PR and which ones are going to lose it.

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  7. I agree that this is not surprise, and this is happening all the time.

    This is not the first time that such thing happens.

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  8. This isn’t a surprise. They’re constantly changing the algorythm. It’s best for everyone. I think eventually they will actually go to people reviewing the sites.

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  9. Google page rank is so ephemeral, it’s here one minute and gone the next. Really I just want to dominate the SERPs – you can take my PR and shove it!

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  10. Page rank is such a tricky beast – for so many things it is worthless – it will never tell you how much organic traffic you’re going to get. I’ve seen many page rank 0 and page rank 1 sites outperform page rank 3 and 4 sites. Page rank is good for showing off, but it’s like driving in golf, drive for show putt for dough…

    Reply
  11. Hi dear

    As from many comments over here at this very old article in
    2007.but what about the year 2008 updation of google .

    I think there is nothing in this article so pls give a update info.

    Raj

    Reply
  12. I have experienced a lower page rank after selling links and consecuently the ranking on the SERPS becames bad.
    So you better don’t sell links on your website.
    Good luck!

    Reply
  13. Let’s hope the PR changes slow down as we go along. But who knows, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google did away w/ the concept of PR altogether. Either way we will adapt!

    Reply

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