Page Rank Is A Weird Thing
This morning Tyler was telling me about his ongoing PR issues with Google, and I decided to check the page rank score for rodtempleton.net for the first time in about 4 months.. Turns out that it’s back up to 4 after sinking as low as 2 not too long ago. This got me to thinking.
Over the last little while, Tyler’s been a lot more active with his posting than I have, and yet my PR goes up, while his goes into the tank. But if you search my name in Google, 8 of the 10 results on the first page relate to me (only #3 and #6 aren’t links to me - gotta get working on that). And it’s been that way for years - good search results in Google, and lousy Page Rank.
It kind of makes me wonder if PR is the thing that bloggers should be chasing. Seriously, if every result on the first page relates to quality content that you’ve provided, does it even matter what the page rank for the site is? The only thing I ever use the Google Toolbar for is to check my own PR, and that’s only 3 or 4 times per year. I don’t use it to check other sites, and a PR of 1 or 2 isn’t going to make me doubt the information on a site if I find it useful.
It’s sort of like the Technorati craze a year or two ago where the only thing that mattered was getting into the top 10,000 and then then the top 1000, and finally the top 100. It doesn’t matter what your score is if you’ve got crap content.
I’m sure that PR plays a part in Google’s search results somehow, but if it does, they’re obviously not going to explain exactly how, and I wouldn’t expect them to.
But I just don’t think that PR is holy grail that bloggers should be chasing.
If you think I’m wrong, please tell me.
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2 Responses to “Page Rank Is A Weird Thing”
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Yea it’s funny because my PR as 4 then 3, then 0 and one some of the PR Checking websites I have -1 which is silly.
According to Google’s Webmasters Tools I am still indexed, when I post blog posts they show up instantly in my Google Reader as well as indexed via Feedburner and some other services.
I scrapped Technorati but not looking at the rank anymore (though i dropped back down to within 100,000 or so). I have an increase of traffic on a monthly basis so I must be doing something good right? My Google AdSense still works so I am not violating any TOS. Not sure why my PR plummeted!
I honestly can’t remember the last time I looked at my Technorati rank - once all that weird stuff started happening where sites would swing 100,000 or so per day, it just lost its relevance.