22 replies to this topic

[fishermack]

Hi,

Just to let all the people here know, I was also a casulty at the end of last year, my toolbar PR went from a PR5 down to PR0.
I thought I was about to be knocked out of big G forever.

Then Jill sent me an email telling me that if traffic has not dropped, then don't worry. I grit my teeth and carried on adding even more content. Now I am getting more traffic than ever - WITH A PR "ZERO"!


SO THE LESSON HERE IS DON'T FRET PEOPLE - UNINSTALL THAT LITTLE GREEN MONSTER NOW!!!


Although, I do understand why some webmasters worry. We spent years link building to improve traffic stats/sales, and PR was good for a guide to how Big G would reward our efforts.
In fact, I'm still a bit confused about it all. My site is listed in ALL the major directories online, and has been for years. Even in G sitemaps it states there are no problems. But surely links from open directory, yahoo, and G's would leave me a little PR?

Oh well, I've got rid of GTB now so who cares!
Maybe now we can all start linking to other sites because of quality content and not because their green is bigger than ours!

Wayne

[projectphp]

I just don't get PageRank Obsession. Unless you sell PageRank (in the form of text links), what your PR is simply doesn't matter. PR is simply a means to an end. Focussing on the ends makes more sense.

[Randy]

Spot on Wayne.

I couldn't tell you what the PR of any of my sites is because frankly I haven't looked in years. If it weren't for Mod'ing here at HR I wouldn't even have the toolbar installed on my computer. As it is GTB is never activated in my browser, and even when I do bring it up I also have to make an extra few clicks to activate the An added bonus being that I'm not giving big G an easy way to track my movements.

Like Mike, I just don't get the obsession either. No matter how you shake it and stir it, one less thing to worry about is one less thing to worry about. Besides, since I track the previous days sales every single morning, I'll know from that a lot quicker than any other way if something is wrong.

Maybe we need to start a Just Say No campaign against the green monster. Got an emoticon for that one Scottie?

[Jill]

Then Jill sent me an email telling me that if traffic has not dropped, then don't worry. I grit my teeth and carried on adding even more content. Now I am getting more traffic than ever - WITH A PR "ZERO"!

\

I got one right!

[KingPin]

Last year I was hired as Head Of SEO at an SEM company in the UK. When I started working there my first job was to get the company web site in shape and ranking well in the major SE's. On my lunch break I was sitting at my desk chatting to one of the sales rep's and he asked me how we could sell the SEO service better.

I went on to ask him what he had been told to say or what he should put a strong emphasis on and he told me that all the sales rep's were told to push how great PageRank was. The company outsourced all the SEO work to India and India told them that PR was the key to major rankings..basically they were told to tell the potential client the higher the PR the better the rankings.

I was sitting here listening to this and I was in total shock, a tomato even dropped out of my sandwich on the floor and I didn't notice. They had been using this sales pitch for about a year. Eventually I stopped him and showed him some sites that had PR 4's that were out ranking PR 6's for competitive search terms and he just looked at me in amazement, almost like a rabbit caught in the head lights of a car.

Needless to say later that afternoon I took time out and reviewed there entire business model and I seriously couldn't believe it, everything was flawed from beginning to end.

I took my concerns to the owner of the company and put it to him and after I told him everything he asked me "How can we increase our PR from a 3 upwards lol.

Needless to say at that point I told him I resign. I seriously could not believe how hung up on PR this so called SEM company were.

I left to save my reputation and I personally did not want to be dragged down with the company or having to face angry client asking me "Well your sales rep said if we have a PR 7 site we would be in the top 10 of Google, so why are we not there?"

[Mhoram]

Even when you know Toolbar PR is useless, it can still be a concern. I have a client who still worries about it and checks it all the time, even though I've convinced her (I think) that it's meaningless, by pointing to our traffic stats and rankings that have never changed (or even improved a little), while her site went from PR5 to PR0.

However, interest in advertising on her site has waned greatly, and she thinks it must be because some prospective advertisers are coming to her site, seeing the PR0, and moving on. That's not an unreasonable assumption. Granted, if she gets a chance to talk to them, she can show them traffic stats and explain that PageRank doesn't matter; but many won't get far enough for her to do that: they'll just click on to the next site in their market niche hoping to find higher PR. And some simply won't believe her, as we see so many people here having a hard time believing it could be completely useless. So even though she knows PR is useless, higher PR would help her site be profitable. If I could give her that PR5 back, it'd be worth a huge bonus to me.

[Jill]

I took my concerns to the owner of the company and put it to him and after I told him everything he asked me "How can we increase our PR from a 3 upwards lol.

That literally made me LOL. You gotta wonder what part of your talk he didn't understand!

[KingPin]

Jill,

It's not often I'm lost for words but when he asked me that I seriously didn't know what to say, I ended up laughing. I think it was at that point I just thought I need to get out of here!!

[JohnH]

I just submitted this discussion to bizSugar.com because I'm pretty darn sure most small businesses are fixated on their Pagerank. I stopped paying attention to PR because, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought that Google said they were going to drop the whole Pagerank thing.

[Jill]

and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought that Google said they were going to drop the whole Pagerank thing.

Correcting. You are wrong.

[RiYo]

However, interest in advertising on her site has waned greatly, and she thinks it must be because some prospective advertisers are coming to her site, seeing the PR0, and moving on. That's not an unreasonable assumption.

Mhoran, has a very valid point here that is concerning! Although WE know that PR is meaningless, the majority of people out there still think that PR IS valuable. Any suggestions how to get around the issue Mhoran describes, as it is something that I see and hear here as well. Website all of a suddens gets a PR 0 or 1, potential advertisers see this and move on. How do you deal with this?

Richard

[Dictina]

the majority of people out there still think that PR IS valuable. [...] How do you deal with this?

Part of my job as in-house SEO consists in evangelizing the 'print people' and God! once the've heard (and understood) the Pagerank concept is quite difficult to convince them that the Toolbar Pagerank is something they shouldn't take as gospel and that they shouldn't believe everything Google puts in front of his/her eyes. It's specially though with the executives, even quite embarrashing when you have to correct them, and tell them that none should take the Pagerank as a Key Performance Indicator!

What I do is to show me totally shocked and outraged when some pronounces the dammed word in my presence and them show them some examples of their really good performing pages with low even 0 Pagerank, for really competitive terms (Oscar) and examples of their pages showing above competitors with higher PR. But they prefer to believe in Google than in evidence.

[KingPin]

Richard,

potential advertisers see this and move on.

Most good advertisers know if the site is worth advertising on or not, regardless of PR.

[JohnH]

Okay, I was starting to think I imagined the whole Google-dropping-PR thing. Here's where I got the idea...

www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/08/15/google-considers-dropping-pagerank-feature/

Over time I think the term "considers" became "will definitely" in my head. That's what I get for skimming headlines and trying to hold all of this search engine stuff in my head.

Edited by Randy, 07 February 2008 - 01:10 PM.
Live link removed per forum rules.

[Randy]

And that's just speaking about the silly Toolbar PageRank meter John. Not real PageRank.