Does PageRank Have Anything to do With your Rankings?
When Google De-ranked web sites not so long ago, the uproar was unimaginable. Thousands of blogs mentioned PageRank and the number of Google haters (which was large in the first place) doubled in number. However, there were those who didn’t care and didn’t even bat an eyelash with what happened. In truth, I didn’t understand the commotion at first either. So you got de-ranked (so did I), so what? I caught a conversation in a blog once when someone said that PageRank is being less considered as a gauge of a web site’s popularity nowadays because of what happened. However, it is still considered a gauge of authority sites.
So why were the de-ranked bloggers angered anyways?
1. Because They were falsely Accused
Google admitted that the de-ranking was a warning against those who sold text links. And in truth, many of those de-ranked (me included) have not sold text links at all. Copyblogger, Brian Clark, was of the same sentiment. Other bloggers have hinted that his blog getting de-ranked was due to his selling of text links. After a phone call from b5media to Google, Copyblogger was given a PR7, one rank higher than the blog’s original PageRank. Another thing Brian Clark is worrying about is…
2. The Change in Rankings Might Affect How Others See Them as Authorities
When people look at the Google toolbar and sees your web site is a PR8, tendency is, they’ll consider you an authority than a web site without PageRank. This is especially true of commercial or non-personal blogs. And lastly…
3. Because People Think PageRank is Directly Connected with the SERPs
Hmmm…doing an experiment, I searched a highly-competitive key phrase. It’s true, the first few pages are filled with web sites with PageRank. However, higher PageRank doesn’t necessarily mean higher ranking. As I saw with my experiment, there were PageRank 6-8 web sites on the third and fourth pages of the results, and there were PageRank 2-3 at the first page. In short, although PageRank plays a role in your ranking in the SERPs, it is not the only factor.
