Google will remove toolbar Pagerank

According to large data sets we run (which I’m sure you guys do lots more of), PageRank has a very, very low correlation with rankings (and, thanks to the delay between updates, a not great correlation with indexation either). Using PageRank is something less than 10% better than random guessing in predicting whether one page will rank above another.

Based on that, I’d have to agree with you, Dave. I also wouldn’t cry if the weather reporting services took away the 10 day forecast (another horribly unreliable metric).

No links?

But what will people have to talk about on the SEO forums?

IF the PR is canceled, then how to measure the site you want to link trading with? the number of index pages? the traffic? the rank?

it’s kind of a billion industry for PR….oh man

no way..

I stopped obsessing over this long ago, when I first got into SEO it was the main thing that I focussed on but over time as I learnt the ropes it’s importance began to dwindle – thing is though, I’ve sort of got used to it being there, and will still cast an eye over it when I visit a webpage, just out of habit more than anything, so in that respect I guess it will be missed – will have to start using MozRank instead….

But I did always like a quote on SEOMoz’s ranking factors from 2008 (I think) where one of the experts said a person’s tendancy to focus on Page Rank is relative to their lack of knowledge in SEO, or something like that.

You’re true Deano, PR is the easiest way to talk about SEO for most people. But has Dave Ashwort say, it’s a lack of knowledge in SEO to focus on it. PR is not the way for ranking and will be less and less effective…

Rand, you research on the correlation between PageRank and rankings is totally in line with the real life experience I think most of us have had for years. So I can fully back up for your findings

I think Google needs to remove TBPR – they can’t keep it there and leave it out in the Webmaster Tools in the long run. However, removing it will be a challenging and possible painfull process – as I wrote more about in this post: http://blog.demib.com/pagerank-brand-technology.html

so basically what will replace PR? for me it was indicator does page is good or just new crap high google by FRESH SITE BONUS
and now what?

I gues from WMT they already removed that referrencies to PR. I don’t think that google will remove this green little bar from google toolbar, although wouldn’t be a bad thing.

what will I watch now to make myself feel good. Perhaps Alexa.

Good riddence is all I can say. Though I wonder if Google’s got any form of replacement planned..

I don’t think anybody spoke about eliminateing PR. They say only about removeing from public sights. I mean, come on, after all PR is one of the most precious invention of Google in search engine domain, isn’it?

@Solarian – agree, they’re not getting ridding of it, it would appear they’re trying to remove it from the public eye – which is no big deal as such as we know that it’s generally out of date and not a true reflection of the actual PR anyway.

I guess the reason would be over the past few years, there have been more and more people suggesting it’s inaccurate and shoudn’t be relied upon yet many people still obsess over it, so by removing it, it should clear up any ambiguity over it’s value to us SEO’s.

That said, it probably won’t and will just cloud the issue further.

what do you think about caffeine? I am interested more in local aplication: does anybody knows if changes brought by caffeine will aply in other countries or (first) will be an google.com feature?

no way..

Wew, Its about start my own PR business. ….lol
If its true, I have to forgot that project and make my own web ring is canceled.

If Goog remove TBPR it will provide Bing with a great opportunity to provide one instead!

how about domain, paid review and paid links industry.. it became confuse me actually!

Hmm just gossip.. If it’s right many blogger will not happy

I think many people didn’t get what you post, Dave

I think it was a good thing because many bloggers who use a variety of ways to increase PR without regard to the article so we can found many useless article in google

sorry……………..

i don’t really think about PR… since my blog Pagerank derived from PR3 to be empty ….

I think Google won’t remove TBPR. Pr is a brand now.

It amazes me how every forum and blogger is obsessed with trying to forecast what Google is going to do. You’ve people been saying the same thing over the last 3 years and nothing has changed. PR is here to stay rather it has heavy or light value. It’s what Google is based on and the creation of Google is because of the creation of the formula. If one person makes a quote then they become an instant expert. It’s a good thing that none of these blogs are taken very seriously or else all you have to say is that a nuclear bomb is headed towards New York and everyone would evacuate

@Mike

Well, it’s our blog and we’ll obsess over what we like thanks! As it is, what Google does next will have a big impact in our industry. Let’s say we made some kind of drug and there were lots of hints about new regulation from Government that would alter the environment we operated in. You think people aren’t going to talk about it just because you find it boring or too speculative?

Anyway, the issue here isn’t about PageRank – it’s about the publically visible bit of PageRank on the toolbar. That’s two completely different issues.

Mike, you must be reading the wrong blogs because your assumptions is just not right. Do you know what PageRank is at all? It sure dosn’t seem that way

No Toolbar Pagerank? Wah….

I’ve been focusing on pagerank far too much I think. Maybe even to the point it cripples me. Maybe out of sight out of mind will help me here

This has gone mostly unnoticed, with the release of the labs feature, until now. A Google Webmaster Help thread reports the PageRank values shown in Webmaster Tools has now been completely removed. I have verified this and it is true.

Googler, Susan Moskwa explained why in the thread:

I never ever use Pagerank when doing an SEO campaign. Google did the right thing. It carries no weight at all. I have clients ranking #1 on Google and they have a zero page rank. Ohh and no they are not ranking #1 because of long tailed keywords. Case in point type in Google: Hallmark Custom Printing and http://www.newcityhallmark.com is way up there. New City has zero Pagerank…zero. If you know how to properly implement SEO “It just doesn’t matter” If your looking to find relevant websites to link to, do what I do…I do not link with any site that has an Alexa ranking above 500,000.

After we had a change from PR 0 to 2 on our project tus-hasede.blogspot.com on October 23rd there has nothing happened with our other websites. I guess that the pagerank will not be discontinued but maybe there will be just updates of single websites in the future and no “big update”.

Update single websites? Just do one website a month? Sounds like par for the course. Everyone’s pagerank will be years and years out of date. People will still use it as the sole means of judging a website though. Want a pagerank? Just have to wait 827, 834 years…

All the comments regarding people having obsessed over PR is exactly the reason Google wants to/has remove(d) it.

“How do I know who to do link exchanges with now??”. For starters, Google isn’t too keen on sites doing link exchanges to begin with, so whether there is a visible PR or not, you still shouldn’t exercise link exchanges.

Furthermore, it was becoming more and more noticeable on the web that people were leaving comments with a link to their site on blogs/articles, etc., just because that page had a high PR and not because it was overly relevant to their site. Putting your link on a page with a high PR, but with low relevancy, isn’t going to do much, if anything at all. It’s all really pointless, actually.

I highly recommend forgetting about other site’s PR value and focusing on whether linking to/from that site will actually benefit either party. I guarantee (for what that’s what ;)) that you will see improvements in SERP’s when relevancy is (one of) your main goals in link building. Don’t forget anchor text is huge as it tells people (and ultimately GoogleBot) what you’re linking to/what to expect when they click the link.

Summary: forget about PR… Google already has.

Google will remove toolbar Pagerank

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