Just enter your first name and valid email address below, then click theDropped? A Detailed Hypothesis Of Why Google Dropped Our Pagerank
First of all, I have to be honest with you that I don’t totally care about Pagerank. I did a few months ago but when I realized that it was nothing but a number between 1 to 10, it stopped my obsession.
Think about a world without pagerank. No spamming, no blackhat guys, no linktrains, no linkbuying, no linkfarming and no stupid threads on DP people asking when the next pagerank update is. Well then here it is your long awaited pagerank update. It’s not what you expected, didn’t you?
It happened yesterday, October 24 when Google shattered the blogosphere. It was all around. Someone even made a comic strip about it.
Questions have been roaming around lately on what really happened and why did all these sites’ PR dropped. No one really knows, but here are my theories about it:
Text Links
It has been confirmed, yet people just tend to ignore it – and I’m one of those so here I am with PR 3 blog (from PR 4)
I understand why Google doesn’t let people buy and sell links, it’s for better results anyway. Just imagine if you search for something you really need and all you get are spammy sites plastered with ads and with no useful content, that would be hell.
So about an hour ago, I sent all my text link advertisers a confirmation email if it was ok for them that I add the nofollow attribute on their links. Although I don’t really sell link juice because all my ads are for traffic purposes only, it will be essential to put the “nofollow” tag in their links to be sure that Google won’t have a second thought on my site.
Blog Network Interlinking
Engadget’s PR drop down from 7 to 5, Autoblog’s was from 6 to 4, Problogger’s and Copyblogger’s dropped down from 6 to 4 too. Yes, they don’t sell links but in this instance what do they have in common?
Problogger and Copyblogger are all part of the b5media and for your info, b5media blogs are interlinked with each other. Though Problogger and Copyblogger don’t link to any of them but the whole network does. Same anchor text, links and etc. I bet they’re not doing it to game Google but who knows what Google thinks. Same with Engadget and Autoblog, it’s worse on their side because they link with each other. Meaning they’re giving reciprocal links which can be considered as a link farm.
Widget Bucks?
Shoemoney has a post about this. It started when a high profile blogger told him that one of the causes of PR drop on some blogs was the widget bucks. Due to the fact that you are not allowed to remove the Widget Bucks’s link on the widget, you’re considered linking to them – and they’re currently penalized (give their name a search and they’re nowhere to be seen in the SERP)
I guess they really pissed off Google about their TOS that says you’re not allowed to remove the backlink to their site on their widget
Back-links placed by Mpire in the HTML code must not be removed.
Haha… good one
Contests with Links
This could be one possibility. Launching contests especially if you have big prizes like what Darren recently did can attract hundreds of links. Google, as a robot will immediately flag you for that. You can be deflagged but it would be better if you inform them before you launch so no harm will be done.
Linkloves
In the Google webmaster guidelines, there’s a statement there which says that a single webpage’s reasonable number of active links is just below 100. Link loves, linktrains and group writing projects can be a little harmful if not moderated or posted with care.
Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
Google just hates us
Almost all of the “make money online” blogs’ PR dropped from the recent update, is it possible that Google just hates us? Nahh… Be optimistic. At least all of the blogs in your niche has low PR’s, nothing changed. It’s all equal :twisted:
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24 Comments →
Carlo that is just linking to get attention, not giving value.
I was actually the first person to my knowledge to hypothesize about the blog network connection, and that isn’t a certainty.
Even the list on Search Engine Land was based on the research me and Daniel did very quickly over IM, plus a few very quick contributions from Wiep.
Widget bucks isn’t related to this, though I also wrote about that hidden link well before Shoemoney.
Thanks for the visit Andy
Yes, you may have been the first to post all of that before us (me, searchengineland and shoemoney) but that doesn’t mean we can’t post our own ramblings about it in our own blogs.
And honestly I didn’t notice the blog network theory on your blog, it was my own experience on having some networks of sites before. Nothing is new under the sun.
BTW, the widget bucks was funny that’s why I posted it ;)
Still, I respect your opinions
Cheers,
Carl
Very nice piece Carl! I like how you started off by saying that you really didn’t care about it anymore. You shouldn’t care, because it’s become a totally worthless metric.
Your theories are all definitely probabilities, each one makes total sense and I can see why Google wouldn’t like each of those practices.
I guess you and I are going to have to be a little more careful, but other than that it shouldn’t affect us too much.
Thanks man, yeah it became totally worthless.
But we don’t know if Google has something under their sleeves.
Gotta love Google. Just when you think you understand their algorithms, they go and pull the rug out from under you.
I am not hating Google for all these demotions, I am hating them for focusing too much on these big blogs and forgot about new blogs like mine! :evil:
I am still at PR N/A but I am focusing on traffic building now. PR is getting more and more useless in my opinion.
Hey you’re PR 4 now! Don’t take it personally :wink:
Grr Google has more holes in them right now than Yahoo with their 5 year BETA advertising program.
Ok lng yun! pareho lng nmn tayo ng PR eh PR3 after 8 months
you make money nmn out of it so Google made it even for small bloggers
it seems that reciprocal linking is going to see an re-surgence as people dump paid links for more classic marketing methods.
I personally liked this PR update. My two blogs were started in August so I hadn’t had an update yet. They went from PR N/A to PR 3 :D
Don’t put a link to every letter though it just makes you look like your trying to whore your post out.
That’s not a cmic strip! (CopyBlogger’s post). THIS is a comic strip:
http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/pagerank-lolcats/
:razz:
And whuy dizn’t I saw tat? :shock:
All those Smiley faces hurt my eyes! lol
At least Google did a good job in presenting them. haha!
Hi,my 6 months old site got jump from PR 0 to 2 . Is it fast or slow ? I am aware everyone is talking about Google PR, what have they done right or wrong .Honestly, I dun care or or even bother trying keep up to the latest trend of ever changing Google algorithm.Is PageRank really so important ? to prove oneself:�Hey I guess it right this season ?� or to show off to whoever ?
I don’t care about PageRank anymore either, as it isn’t that accurate as it was before the time of spammers and blackhatters.
From what I heard, Google has penalized WidgetBucks and not sites linking to widgetbucks. Not sure though.
What you said is really true, in the long run this would benefit everyone.
When you search something, you should be directed to sites that have the most content in it and not just spam.
Carl - I have never been one to really understand the PR fasincation. All I really care about is traffic to my site if I have a PR of 0 but 1000 people to my site a day then I am happier than a PR4 with 200 people a day.
I do like the picture you used in this post - one of the best I have seen to explain PR
Chris
Gawd, mine had gone to N/A too, I hate the fact that they have to reduce our PR’s just because we monetize our blogs. What’s the catch anyway? They do the same thing, too I guess on their ‘other’ websites perhaps. Damnn, it makes me go all crazy. –,
I think all is good now Carl :)
You probably right in that manner. But I do believe PageRank may increase your EPC (earning per click). What I figure out so far is if the page has no PR it indicates that the value of the content might not be as high or accurate compare to a page which has one. So ending up the ads (AdSense) that appear in that page will not be the high paying ad.
Azlan
PS: Check PageRank for Internal Pages