SEO Blog

PageRank valuations are fluctuating wildly again nearly three weeks after Google began targeting sites that bought and sold text-links. Earlier today, reports started coming in to SEO writers and blogs tracking PageRank. This time however the trend seems to tend towards terminal as Google has been assigning a bunch of PR0 valuations to several sites, including some that do not buy or sell links.

rustybrick from Search Engine Roundtable points out the latest PageRank discussion thread happening at DigitalPoint forums. This thread is a good read because it is where a bulk of SEOs are discussing, dissecting and hopefully solving the riddles associated with Google’s means of page-trust evaluation.

European SEO writer Andy Beard has a lengthy post, “ZERORANK” outlining the recent five phases of what appears to be wider PageRank update. Andy also reports on several specific cases in which websites with average or above-average PR valuations have dropped to PR0. Part of his post includes the process of filing a “reconsideration request”.

Google has been trying to hobble the growth of businesses that treat links as commodities for the past few years. As the months have rolled on, Google’s methods have become harsher and more direct, culminating in the current series of PR updates. Given the timing and the length of time involved in this apparent update, my gut continues to lean towards the idea that we are witnessing a wider algorithm update in which Google is testing on SEO and SEM industry sites and many somehow related to them. (Please note, I have nothing more solid than my experience with Google and a slightly better-than-vague understanding of how Google’s crawler-based search engine operates to back up this opinion. I do think it is something SEOs should watch out for.)

I think Google is incorporating a far higher test for relevance (both contextually and spatially) between documents that link together than they have in previous years. As this update is thought to be prompted by a targeted hit on sites violating Google’s Webmaster Central Guidelines, but is appearing to cascade to affect other listings, it is becoming easier to believe that these actions might have much greater implications.

Metamend and its clients have not seen any PR fluctuations (as of the time of this post). We suspect that is partially because of our strict adherence to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. We also suspect that is because of our strict focus on relevant and user-helpful links as applied to or from our clients’ websites.

Algo-heads that we are, we will be watching Google with a slightly finer tuned radar over the coming weeks.