» October 24, 2007 in
There were many blogs that got their pagerank dropped lately but this morning came a big surprise: ProBlogger is now a PageRank 4. What?I was sorry to hear that Darren, and I'm sure this is temporary and we will all learn a thing or two about pagerank reading Darren's perspectives in the near future.
But why the drop? (or as some call it, a penalty)
My Top 3 "Potential" Reasons:
1. Contests for Links. - Giving away prizes for links is probably the same thing as paying for links in Google's opinion.
2. Group Writing Projects. - Just because a linkback isn't required doesn't mean that an algorithm doesn't see these as the exact same thing as huge reciprocal linking schemes. They might also look like "link farms" to the googlebot, and hosted on your blog.
3. People reported Problogger. Doesn't anybody else think it is more than coincidence that almost the next PageRank update after Google starts taking user submitted reports of paid links that they start giving out penalties like candy?
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/
(note: I didn't say Darren sells paid links but that doesn't mean people didn't report him)
Of course I'm probably wrong on all 3 points so what do you think? Are group writing projects giant reciprocal linking schemes? Why Is Problogger A PageRank 4? Will we ever really know?
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thatedeguy says on October 24, 2007
At this point, I'm guessing that it has more to do with number of links than it does with selling them. The penalties for selling links came through several weeks ago.
I dropped from a pr5 to a pr4 then and just dropped to a pr3 in this drop.
What's going on with all this? I think the algorithm changed a little and I'm hoping that our PR goes back up after the full rollout...
Not gonna hold my breath though.
Empress says on October 24, 2007
Yup, BME has taken a tumble too - although I've only gone down from a PR4 to a PR3. Ahhhh... crap.
Caroline Middlebrook says on October 24, 2007
Has anyone actually reported an *increase* in PR? Seems like everyone in the blogging / make money online niche seems to have dropped in the PR. Does it really matter anyway? Well I guess those with lower PR will drop down on your Top 100 list :-)
45n5 () says on October 24, 2007:
@thatedeguy - why so sure it's not for selling links? Look at the list of everybody dropping today. Not everybody is a link seller but many of them are.@empress - that's really lame, sorry to hear about it
@caroline - I haven't heard of a single person increasing. I will update the top100 later today, should be interesting.
Vlad says on October 24, 2007
2 some times not equals 2.... I am guessing there iblotskyy.coms more to come in terms of their algorithms which may affect SERPS and the traffic via those or PR system is becoming completely useless.
It will however affect your top 100 list- bye bye 48th place lol
Sly from Slyvisions.com says on October 24, 2007
After all this comotion with Google, the quote (wherever it came from) "Live By Google, Die By Google" can actually be held true. There's one thing I can say about all this PR/TrustRank change-- DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT! Apparently, it doesn't really matter for now. The one thing we know is that it won't matter in the future because even the top sites are getting low PR's. Whatever Google is doing, we're not sure what it is yet.
Sly from Slyvisions.com
45n5 () says on October 24, 2007:
@vlad - you are still top100 ;-)@sly - I'm not worried, it just helps to know the reasons behind thing moving forward.
Darren says on October 24, 2007
I'm yet to find any real reason to be disappointed by Google's decrease in page rank except that it knocked me off #1 position in your Top 100 blogs on Making Money :-) Traffic not impacted and anyone that seems to know anything about anything these days doesn't really seem to take much notice of PR anyway (unless you're selling links or reviews which I don't do).
davestarr () says on October 24, 2007:
It's certainly true that we'll likely not know the true reasons.One point that Mark may have gotten right, though, is Darren's huge Group Writing/Specified Link Text efforts. I wasn't paying much attention, because these huge contests have now become boring to me and I don't read/participate ... but asking hundreds of people to link back with exact wording and spelling certainly can't be wise.
I am guessing that a factor we really can't guess is the "crab mentality" that leads people to strike out against those on top, simply because they _are_ on top. Hard to say.
45n5 () says on October 24, 2007:
@dave - hard to say is right.@darren - LOL, I'll make sure the advertisers can still find you even though you dropped way down the list.
sarahG () says on October 25, 2007:
I don't think any PR increase has been made as it seems to me that the only sites affected with recent PR changes are those either known to sell links or are involved in this latest change. I read elsewhere about potentially being involved in blog networks could be the issue too.Plus my reasoning behind saying that PR increase hasn't been seen is my own blog hasn't regained its PR or any PR since I changed the domain in May. I don't sell links on that site or do anything iffy so I doubt I've lost all of it!
Sapphire says on October 26, 2007
Caroline, I haven't seen any sites go up. I have two new ones that have never been ranked and do not sell links at all - they're still unranked. I don't think this is a PR update - I think it's just a penalty phase.
And here's my crazy theory. Problogger and Copyblogger both have aff links to TextLinkAds. All my sites that took hits have some TLA ads. Meanwhile, one site that didn't take a hit is prominently advertising that you can buy a link on it cheap, but there are no TLA links currently on it.
What if the new algorithm looks for any evidence of TLA (or perhaps other services as well) outside your main content?
Now, my sites that sell TLA links don't have links to TLA itself. But I'm wondering if the WP plugin I use from TLA could leave some sort of a footprint.
This really may be totally wacked - my first thought was, as you suggested, that people reported them. I just doubt some of my piddly non-webbie sites got reported and am trying to come up with a theory that explains their penalty as well as ProBlogger's.
Steven says on October 26, 2007
Since we all know now that PageRank does mean as much anymore, and it is mostly just used internally for Google, will you drop it as a main point of your Top 100??
45n5 () says on October 26, 2007:
wow saphire, totally tinfoil hat thinking even references to tla caused the dump, good stuff ;-)@steven - "Since we all know now that PageRank does mean as much anymore,"
I don't believe that for a second. Did you notice how many bloggers posted about pagerank lately, it still matters a great deal.
Sapphire says on October 27, 2007
Oddly enough, I wasn't feeling tin foil hat when I hatched that one - just trying to think what sort of algorithm would I use if I wanted to catch paid links, and thinking I'd set it up to look for the major companies that provide them.
Of course, when you fit that in with the feeling most of us have that it's really just Google trying to edge out competitors, then I can see where you get the tin foil hat aspect.
koen () says on October 27, 2007:
ProBlogger is back to PR6 according to him. And my toolbar can confirm it. Also he got confirmation that it was all about people Selling Text Links.Just read his article about it. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/27/the-google-page-rank-pendulum-swings-again/
sarahG () says on October 27, 2007:
Well I've finally had a PR shakeup on my sites. Blog has got some PR back but only 3 out of the 4 it was on in May. Another site has dropped to 3 from 4, however my business site has gone back up to 5. Seems like the general population PR update has started now.45n5 () says on October 27, 2007:
@sapphire - I didn't mean it negatively. I like tinfoil hat stuff ;-)@koen @sarahG - thanks for the feedback
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