Google PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that rates websites on a logarithmic scale of 0-10, with 10 being the best. While Google has h...
Google PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that rates websites on a logarithmic scale of 0-10, with 10 being the best. While Google has had a tradition of updating it regularly in the past, it might now be time for us to move on as according to Google's John Mueller, the December 2013 update might have been its last one. PR was technically last updated in October 2013, and the December update was unplanned, accidental.
A question was asked by a frustrated individual who couldn’t understand why so many spammy sites selling PR6 backlinks had not been dealt with despite having been reported to Google multiple times. Here's what Mueller said;
“There are a few things where we do take action that you might not see directly. Toolbar PageRank is something that we have not updated for about a year now, and we’re probably not going to be updating it going forward… we have a lot of way to recognize these problematic links, and the sites selling those links, that essentially blocks the PageRank from passing through those sites.”
The response was made during a Hangout.
Mueller also mentioned that he would go through the individual’s list of spammy sites to see if he can find anything that Google’s algorithms aren’t picking up on.
According to Mueller, PageRank will most probably no longer be updated. He also said that Google has measures in place to stop do-follow backlinks from flowing the PR juice if they are on spammy sites. Well, we've been hearing the second bit quite a lot now, so let's just digest the PR thing for now.
Why did Google kill PR?
Google last updated PR in October 2013, and Matt Cutts mentioned that the next update will probably come late in the year. Then in December 2013, Google engineers were working on the backend, and just ventured to make an update along the way. This wasn't a planned update.
Then, earlier in this year, Google announced that it probably won't update toolbar PageRank. Here's a piece from that earlier reporting;
Google obviously thinks that consumers don't need the latest data, because publishers obsess over it too much. So why not pull the meter from the toolbar altogether? Google said that despite everything, consumers still find it useful. Now I'm not sure what exactly do they mean because on the one hand, according to Google, people still need the data. But on the other hand, Google also thinks that people obsess over it too much.
So now Google says it will be using some other signals instead of PR to rank a website. Good ol' PageRank might finally be going away for good.
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