PageRank: Acting Brand New - The Weird
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In 2002 Google arbitrarily reduced the PageRank of www.searchking.com (currently a pariah in nternet marketing circles) to zero. I checked it recently and, at the time of this writing, it's still zero (this is after a couple of years). This history is repeating itself (more on that later).
At the time a very important legal precedent was set. It was decided by a judge that PageRank was merely "Google's opinion," and as such was protected by the right to free speech. Not everybody seemed to notice that this ruling more or less said PageRank was owned by Google and could be changed at any time they wish. Search marketers took exception to the idea that Google was persecuting Internet marketers, and some complained that Google was simply picking on the web sites because they were offering advertising models that competed with Google's pay per click program.
The arguments made were considered moot since Google owns PageRank and could "arbitrarily" change their opinion about what was going on, math or no math. Google was more concerned about the results of their SERPs than any couple of web site owners' income streams, and that led us to the mess we had in the last quarter of last year (more on that later).
The problem is an over estimation of the importance of PageRank. Google does not help the situation by displaying approximate PageRank values on the Google toolbar. This is one situation in which Google should very much keep its opinion to itself. Showing a site its PageRank (Google's "opinion" of the site) has brought nothing but grief, and a maddening conceit followed by anger when Google changes its opinion.
The Bad
The pay-per-post phenomenon and Google's very late update last year resulted in history repeating itself. It's now official; selling text links can hurt your PageRank. Google has found a way to incorporate paid text links into their PageRank algorithm. But pay-per-post restarted Searchking's business model and got egg on Google's face. What is important to notice is that if you try to sell your web page to advertisers based on its PageRank, your PageRank will be affected.
The problem is that no one is sure how much of is automated. TechCrunch, a vocal opponent and critic of pay-per-post's advertising model (they liken it to prostitution!) said in this post that Google has declared a "Jihad" or holy war against blog link farms. How holy the war is remains to be seen. I think Google is more concerned about the bottom line than holy things.
Next: The Bad continued >>
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