5 Reasons why Google PageRank sucks (and is no more a valid metric) !
I’m a huge fan of Google PageRank. Not because I have a tendency to love anything Google, but because its the only authoritative and successful metric today that can grade websites for their authority. Its been there for ages now and though often speculative, it has given webmasters a generally accepted measure scale for websites. Even though Google says that its an algorithm based on the incoming number of links and the result of complex calculations no body can completely predict, many people understand it, and associate a lot of “quality assessment values” to the green bar.
“Less green = bad site, More green = Awesome !” – Is what many people believe of it, even though technically they may be incorrect.
But today I think that Google PageRank is a thing of the past. Google has forgotten to upgrade the great PageRank algorithm to match the current trends and climate. Ask me why ?
1. Many people still don’t know what the hell it is !
Believe me, many people think that its a ranking system for websites. So, if you score a pagerank 1, that means you are number one. Just like your school grades.
2. Google hasn’t bothered to explain us how exactly it functions.
And its not even necessary you may think. But hell no ! If this thing is out in public, it makes sense to exist if only everyone knew how it worked. Yes, Google has taken the pain in explaining a few things (what they say matters to you) but tell me if there’s one person who can tell us how the whole thing works ? No. Google guys will only say bits and pieces about it and probably the best explanation is “its our own metric to grade and calculate website authority based on number of backlinks”. How is it calculated ? How is it triggered ? When is is calculated ? Nobody told us. May be nobody even knows.
3. Google PageRank should’ve remained an internal tool at the Googleplex
I mean, other than the three month updates and the usual “is it live” discussions (not to mention the umpteen number of rumours) what good is it to us anyway ? If Google built it for website authority grading, they should’ve used it internally and not released it to public without planning to tell us how it works. Its your tool, keep it with you, we’re better off without it.
4. Google PageRank is heavily based on “backlinks” and not all of us are webmasters ! (Heck ! Some people even don’t know what a backlink is)
Think about it. Google says PageRank is completely or almost completely based on the number of incoming links a website gets. It does some funny calculations with the number of backlinks and the PageRank of the original website, before deciding the resulting PageRank of the new website. Fine. But my question to Google is..did you expect everyone in this world to be webmasters ? I hope not. But I also wish if that was the case. So that, just like everybody says hello, we would all say “link equals to – domain – rel equals to dofollow”. But that isn’t the case. We are humans, and if we love a website or a webpage, we simply email it to our friends, or tweet about it, or copy paste the URL to our networks. Don’t you think that’s also one of the metrics to count for “website authority” ?
5. Google PageRank can be easily “made up”, if you really want it or is obsessed with it.
So Google, you say the green bar fills up when more and more people link to our site, and on the other hand you expect people not to buy links ? Now, that’s a clever joke. Did you know that all you need is some cash in your PayPal account, and some time to buy “quality incoming links”. No, I’m not talking about directory submissions, but PR6 and above .edu backlinks ? You either know it or you’re pretending that you didn’t know. But trust me, its easy as that. And I’m not doing it because I know that I can run a popular site without buying links, and investing that much money on other productive things like hiring a content writer or a designer, you know…!
So, there you have it. Google PageRank is now obsolete. Its just another reason for “internet marketers” to sell SEO and Link building softwares. The clever know that its no more valid, it does not take the social media aspects into context, and is only a count of how many links point to your site (in a funny scale that is). And you might want to roll it back to the plex soon, at least you can avoid a lot of confusion in the world. 
I am completely with you on this … It is never explained what the hell it is and how it is calculated but everyone still wants a good Google PR … Isn’t it??
Nice Explanation.. Thanks for Your In-Depth Views on Google PR
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I think no one will care about Pagerank as next generation web is social networking & web 3.0 ie. simply site looks very attractive & some content & users will flow into from social networking
SO Google Pr is only based on Backlinks, then spammers sites will be top
One thing is for sure, thanks to google page rank … SEO companies are reaping Huge Profits off some directory submissions, link building etc.
Plus thanks to page rank we know… why Labnol get better Search results than me
Well, I certainly agree to your blog post. there is lot of opinions here for which masses will agree to.
I have seen website which has poor quality of content with no context, no interests, ample pages with page rank of 5. they have nothing inside but are still given a page rank of 5 because it follows the process of bribing Search Engines with food, be it of any kind search engines cares a less.
Besides, with your concern about page rank to be kept for internal reasons, I do not agree to this fact because then there would have been no business called ‘SEO services or no job role as ‘SEO professionals’. Though not any SEO expert has cracked yet the entire scene behind the game.
+1 to your page rank of no. 1 psychology. I remember the very first time when I told my ex-boss about his website obtaining page rank of 1. He was so very excited about it and he thought he is leading on the top list of Google. Well, certainly I had to console his excitement by saying him the norms Google follows and how page rank is actually graded.
Thanks for this post.
Regards
Sorav
Sorav, I’m sure many SEO companies still count PageRank as a metric directly related to search engine ranks, but I beg to differ. I see it only as a bonus to your efforts, which if good will fetch you better results on the SERPs.
Here’s the thing.
Better PR doesn’t always mean better results. But better results often show better PR as an end product.
thoughtful and informative article, thanks for sharing.
I think webmasters’ obsession with pagerank died several years ago. It’s just one metric in a very complex algorithm. The only ones still impressed with it are people new to SEO as it’s the only visible metric they see as soon as they install the toolbar.
BTW, have you considered using the commentluv plugin? It’s really good for mutual link love (not for SE’s but for your readers/commenters).
Google pagerank scale is no longer representative, in my humble opinion. Perhaps they should make it 1-100 instead of 1-10 , that would be more representative and accurate
Hi, it’s a funny thing but my friend LaTease showed me that your Twitter account has a page rank. Take a look at the url for your Twitter account and you’ll see. I think it’s funny because my Twitter pr is way better than my blog pr.
Great post, I’m glad I’m not the only one confused by this issue.
Thanks.
@Ileane
Certainly an informative posts..but PR currently plays an imp role on distinguishing websites..though I hope this won’t be the same in the web 3.0 age which has started a bit..
Nice work, it gave in-depth detail about Google page rank and its functioning, and its perceptions to common man. Algorithms of Google should be upgraded on continual basis and also it should also made people aware about its functioning and raring done to the websites
No doubts Pagerank still play an important roles. As Google still remain as the major search engine and bring most of your website traffic to you
Mani,
Now the question stands: In your opinion, what is a good way to measure a website’s SEO?
An SEO scan that takes into account web 1.0 with web 2.0?
Hi Chris,
A lot of things to be honest. User interaction, Popularity ratios, Web Standards, Social Media Popularity and such. Its a bit unfair to predict anything at the moment but I’m really hopeful of 2010 where a lot of these factors would get more clarity and would surge up for us.
I agree that PageRank isn’t as big of a deal as some people make it out to be, but we live in a world obsessed with rankings and this, to some extent, does a decent job of ranking sites. I’m not one of those people pacing around the room waiting for the next update to see if I went up or down, but given the perception that the average Web user has of PageRank, it’s certainly something that’s important to make a priority.
Interesting post.
Altough I personally still think pagerank is a good indication about whether a website is popular or not, I think that it is becoming a thing of the past and pagerank seems to be more or less not tht importent anymore.
Antway only time will tell wheter it will still be importent.
I Hate PR Now, for the last 2 years no update, but traffic increased 500% more.
PR, in our opinion, is still a decent tool to have in your back pocket. When building links from other sites, it’s helpful to see what the PR of the page that you’re building the link from is i.e. you should have some low-quality links mixed in with some high quality (high PR) links. So, at the end of the day, it’s still somewhat helpful.
I think our staff is going to submit a purchase agreement to buy the PR algorithm from Google – for $1M in Monopoly money.
Interesting points! Although you put “easily made-up” factor as your last point, it is truly should be #1 reason why PageRank becomes useless. I really wish everyone who does have some cash in their PayPal would rather select other form of search marketing as PageRank was intended to be quite useful. Thanks for sharing, and Happy Holidays!
It is indeed a good information regarding Google Page Rank. Tons of thx for sharing. As many of us are really unaware of the facts.
Hmm Pagerank may not be the only thing that determines your rankings in search engines, but PR does determine a few things from a search engine’s point of view, like it determines the quality of your site, it determines how deeply search bots can crawl on your pages, it determines how much time can be spent of a particular site.
I don’t think PR is obsolete, its measure of quality of your site from Google’s point of view which still holds some value.
Pagerank really isn’t something to worry about, as long as you know your posting quality content on your website/blog.
Well I guess Page Rank (PR) is what it is, a metric. It represents a specific position in a scale according to some criteria.
I seriously doubt that back links are the only, even main, criteria to calculate your PR.
Mani wrote a post, in December 3th, that referred that page speed could be taken into account when Google defines the PR for a specific site.
But I think that this is a case where 1+1=several. I believe that several other criteria are part of this equation. Honestly I believe that PR wouldn’t give Google any credit if they only used back links to define this measure.
What about the site’s traffic volume, how many times it appears in a search, how many times it gets clicked after a search, number of pages, content, etc.
PR is becoming less and less valid as a metric for measuring relevancy nowadays
The algorithms of Google are well accepted around the world, and most of webmasters of SEO usually track Google’s algorithms for their SEO related strategies.
I think these days people are getting overly concerned with PageRank and it’s subsequent implications. We all know that PageRank can effect rankings but there needs to be a fine balance between onsite and offsite optimisation and marketing. As Google’s algorithms are updated constantly then it is important for us SEO firms to keep an eye out for the latest changes, both in terms of onsite and offsite.
MK,
I feel the importance of PR when I tried for some banner advt. promotion on my website , the only reason I am not getting good response is because I have a PR2 . So even though it is absolute, it harms me
You explained to the point about Google PR. I found interesting & Informative too. Thanks for sharing it.
This is a great blog i like this article and i think one must read this
If Google PR is outdated, why do they keep updating it? If they still keep updating, then it has some or lots of value to them and therefore has an impact on you site’s SERPs. Google is a large corporation and wouldn’t waste time and money on something worthless don’t you think? Just my two cents, thanks
Very informative post, thanks for sharing.
In the long run, quality content and a compelling product or service will trump page rank. Too many SEO organizations scare clients with this metric.