11 replies to this topic

[Wyoming]

I just encountered an interesting article about Google's purchase of a small, startup search engine called Kaltix. The author of the article, Andrew Orlowski of The Register in San Franciso, says that Page Rank as a search tool is dead, and will soon be dropped by Google. The full text of the article is here: http://www.theregist...nt/6/33141.html. Here's a relevant quote from it:

While Google relied on PageRank™ to provide context, all was well. But PageRank is now widely acknowledged to be broken, so new, smarter tricks are required.

[Edited out the article, please click the link to visit it. - Jill]

So my question is - is Page Rank dead? And if so, what is next? Will the drive to exchange links be replaced with something else?

Edited by Jill, 02 October 2003 - 10:32 AM.

[Jill]

I read that article last night, and found it quite amusing!

Unfortunately, PageRank is far from dead. I wish it was though, I hate it.

Jill

[powerofeyes]

Hello,
This article is really interesting. Here is one more article similiar to it,
jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000751.html
thanks,
VIJAY.


[The article above already links to that one for future reference. - Jill]

Edited by Jill, 02 October 2003 - 01:41 PM.

[YaSO]

Probably many of you have read the thesis already, but in case anyone here did not have chance to, here's the link to the origin of Google;
http://www-db.stanfo...rub/google.html, in particular, Google PageRank.

PS - I should have studied a little more seriously and been to Stanford. Maybe that's where my life started going to a wrong direction. Only if I had been to Stanford, ...

[bwelford]

My own view is that PageRank is fine as part of the Google algorithm but they shouldn't make public the value any given web page has. They are very secretive about the way they use the other 100 or so elements in the algorithm, so why lift the veil here.

I believe most of the problems of spamming etc. would go away if they just kept PageRank hidden.

Barry Welford

[linkmaster]

Relevancy of links from high pagerank sites won't change atleast for next 6 months. Pagerank isn't important, but oneway links from high pagerank sites is what matters! And I think search engines can never neglect this fact. After-all, not all sites can get links from pagerank 10 or 9!

[bwelford]

Pagerank isn't important, but oneway links from high pagerank sites is what matters!

... and all the other backlinks too. However it may be that a PageRank 7 is only 6 times as valuable as a PageRank 6, and a PageRank 6 is only 6 times as valuable as a PageRank 5, and so on.

In any case, I am not sure how you could know the real current PageRanks since it seems to me that the Google Toolbar PageRank hasn't changed for many websites in months. It certainly hasn't for my website, although my links have increased significantly.

[jerry]

A link from a page that has a PR=8 would sound good until you realize that their home page has a PR=8, but they put the link to your site on their Links page which has a PR=1 and they have 100 outgoing links on their Links page. A PR=1 divided by 100 means that they are only passing a PR boost to you of 0.01.

On the other hand, if you got a site to link to you from a page that had a PR=1, but there were only 10 outgoing links on that page, the link would be 10 times better. At least, that's the way I see it.

Jerry

[projectphp]

PageRank is link any other algorithm factor: incredibly useful. In essence, the more "meta information" you can have about a page, the more ways you can measure its relevance to a search term. Think of a nbook. If the only way you could describe it was using all the words in it, that is very inefficient. But you have chapters, authors, page numbers, print edition and a host of other details. All of this is useful data for describing a page, and that can be manipulated in order to return a relevant book when someone searches.

PageRank will always have relevance, the question is just how much!!!

[prophecy]

I just encountered an interesting article about Google's purchase of a small, startup search engine called Kaltix. The author of the article, Andrew Orlowski of The Register in San Franciso, says that Page Rank as a search tool is dead, and will soon be dropped by Google. The full text of the article is here: http://www.theregist...nt/6/33141.html. Here's a relevant quote from it:

Wow! Good information.

The only problem with some new algorithm is that people will figure it out and it too will be taken to the cleaners.

[don1]

I do not know enough about how this works but hasn't this always been the danger of the internet? Recycled bad information vs. fresh research driven information getting to end users and computers not being able to tell the difference. It has become standard practice for users to hit the internet to find answers. Usually, there is no doubt about what is found (fact or fiction). So, hasn't the system of ranking actually promoted its own demise? Should the industry move to protect itself or try to keep up with the abusers? Either way has its pitfalls. The question of quantity vs quality is the main issue (and an old one). How do you plan on approaching the issue?

[prophecy]

Well I can't really do anything about the issue, but the good thing that does come out of this, is that search technology always has to improve because even now Google results are getting worse. I remember a few years ago, I'd find what I wanted immediately, now sometimes I go through several pages on google to find it. Maybe yahoo's new search really IS more relevant now. Maybe Microsoft's new search will make google do some drastic changes.

I think the new concept of the search personalizing for you is a good start. For example, I search for "jaguar" and it shows me some car sites, maybe some spam sites, and some animal sites. I click on the car site. Next time I search, the car site is first.