I’ve been participating in this conversation with a few other bloggers since before the She’s Connected or Blissdom Canada conferences, the noise just got louder after they were over and we all went home.
So I ask you the question… does a high scoring Page Rank on a blog equal achievement? Success? Have you ARRIVED if you finally reach a Page Rank of a 5 or more?
In my humble opinion… NO!
Checking your Page Rank, as the only method of ranking a blogger, in the PR world is as antiquated as using a dial-up telephone, having a pager or checking your My Space page!
I don’t know why some (not all) PR groups {Public Relations/Ad Agencies & Marketing Companies} hold onto them so dearly – they mean very little when it comes to influence and knowing who your key influencers are is where it’s at!
“They” tell you that your Page Rank is based on how many inbound links you have, from within your blog and coming from the outside. I looked it up on Wikipedia to see if I could find more specific information and was met with a whole lotta mathematical jargon! With words like, algorithms, probability distribution, eigenvector of the modified adjacency matrix and iteratively or algebraically… my head is spinning!
To add injury to insult, that little green bar that we seem to covet so much… is only refreshed and updated a couple times a year… if that. I heard a rumor that in April 2010, the last time it was refreshed, they may not update it again. **UPDATE: As of January 20, 2011 Google Page Rank finally refreshed!**
I was under the impression that your Page Rank is based on the age of your blog and if you haven’t ticked off the Google gods by doing something despicable by their standards.
Here’s an example regarding age of blog: If you have a yourblog.Blogspot.com blog, the Page Rank checkers see the Blogspot.com domain and ranks your blog based on the age of Blogspot. Not how long you’ve blogged at yourblog.blogspot.com. So a blog with good and frequent content that is fairly new can have a better PR ranking than an older more establish blog which is on their own domain or over at WordPress.
When I moved to my own domain (which actually isn’t really my domain, it’s a simple redirect still within Blogger/Blogspot, which is owned by Google) in April 2010 I too was penalized for jumping ship and am now sitting at a ZERO! **UPDATE: As of January 20, 2011 I have been scored a 3**
The ongoing dilemma and it’s not a new one, the conversations go back to at least 2007 in the blogosphere, is that there are many who do reviews or giveaways for brands and are chosen or rejected strictly based on their Page Rank alone.
The trouble with this thought process, is that they {these PR agencies who only adhere to this misguided practice} are missing out on some pretty fantabulous bloggers who are key influencers in the social media world.
PR Groups need to take the time to get to know the bloggers they’re reaching out to. Do a little search, spend some effort digging into the experience and reach the blogger has. I’ve known people to have been the major force behind a social media campaign’s success, we’re talking influencing 7 generations of participants and they’ve been turned down by agencies to review a $30 product. This is one of the biggest complaint I hear from bloggers.
Here’s my message to PR companies that may be reading this… take the time to do due diligence and actually get to know who you’re communicating with, take more than their Google Page Rank into account.
For example, I may have not have the most favourable page rank in some estimations, but if you were to get to know me, you’d know that I’m a Social Media Director for a company who specializes in Viral Social Media and SEO Marketing, which can locate the Key Brand Influencers and deliver an increased Social Lift! I have been the top influencer… #1, numero-uno… in multiple campaigns with nationally branded companies and products.
I guarantee… there will more to the blogger than meets the eye!
I was also banished from Google page rank. I was so proud of my polished 5, but then banished when I switched to Word Press. My zero status made me feel sad…thanks for cheering me up. 🙂
well said!!
I too have been dropped by google, and it hasn't updated in a year. I'm not that worried, I don't see this as any significance. Yet, when I hear that a company won't look at a blogger due to pagerank, it makes me furious!
Thanks for writing this, all should see!
Page Rank has had me baffled as well. I have a friend with 2 blogs, and her 2nd one that isn't nearly as popular with Friend Connect, feed subscriptions, commenters, even traffic in general, has a MUCH higher page rank than her main SUPERB blog. It's confusing and frustrating. I stopped paying attention to Page Rank a couple of years ago because I understood it was already falling by the wayside at that point… but yup, some firms are still holding on to it. Well said, Shash! We're moving ON, without Page Rank! 🙂
that seems a bit unfair that they penalize you for jumping ship when you are still using their blog. Doesn't make sense.
Here is my 5c. Google is constantly tweaking its algorithms to figure out what PEOPLE want, yet a lot of SEO folks are trying to figure out what GOOGLE wants. If we were to focus and write and design our sites/blogs based on what PEOPLE want we'd be aligned with what Google is trying to do and in some case be ahead of Google (just like your blog Shannon). I think I'll write a blog about it…:)
Thank you for this post!! I too am one of the many bloggers who made the switch to my own domain and have had a page rank of zero ever since (even though my blog is considerably larger and more influential than it was when I actually had a decent page rank). It's frustrating when PR can't see the bigger picture and realize that there are many factors that determine influence.
This was an amazing post! PR is so frustrating! You took some of my questions & smashed them. Thanks! Think Google will ever really stop doing PR?
This is interesting and freeing. I had a 4 (never made it to the high level of 5) and have been bummed to fall to a 3 for no reason. This helps. Thanks. I'll be checking back for your blog.
Found you on Post Rank
Shash,
We at the Yakezie feel the same frustration, but recently started using mozRank as THE Pagerank alternative since it updates every WEEK it seems!
We’ve written at least 5 articles about mozRank now, and we’ve successfully been able organize two recent ad campaigns soley on mozRank!
Hence, I encourage you all to write about the solution to PR in addition to showing frustration about why it’s not good.
We now display mozRank in our ranking system proudly! Please check out in the top right of Yakezie dot com homepage where we proudly use the mozRank system in the "Yakezie Network."
Note: We are a personal finance and lifestyle blog Network who have a strong charitable initiative through our Yakezie Scholarships which are going on right now.
Cheers,
Sam
Yakezie Network Founder