Death of Toolbar Pagerank

[ctabuk]

PaymentBlogger » I’m a directory owner get me out of here!


I know this guy - I could have posted the link to SEO Round Table - but it's in there anyway.

So - bye bye little green line????? - your views - you already know mine

[kgun]

The green little bar will never die as long as there is a man from England, David with the nick ctabuk.

He definitely keeps it alive

Give me half an hour, and I will post what marketing really is. It will be my next post here and it will the WPW post for this century, so stay foccused.

Heading for the story.

Marketing is a type of drama.

Bye for the next (half) hour.

Finished. Here is the result.

Marketing is a type of drama.

Traditionally advertising, ad for short, was about information. Advertising was the the language of the product, the products spoken competence if you want.

Ad can differentiate similar products like Coke and Pepsi. The first is often related with exclusivity, with successful people. Among ad people, it is accepted that the brand is more kown on the earth than the American flag. You find empty bottles in inner Mongolia, on Greenland, in Moscow, in Cartagena, in the Redwood forest, in the Goldswim Water and in the Thames. You find it on Norwegian claciers, on the Chinese Wall, at the top of the Eifell Tower and in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. There is no wonder if you find it on the moon or even on Mars. A bottle with the brand may have been forgotton in a mars vehicle by an engineer. I am sure that you find the bottle in the stomac of sharks and other animals. The brand is worth trillions and the world's best investor, Warren Buffett, likes to be related to the brand and his company has invested a lot of money in the company, that is, in the brand. How is it possible to differentiate Coke and Pepsi? Is there a magical secret formula? Isn’t both brown water with sugar and gas? Is there a difference in colour? Is there a difference in taste? Ad is the answer. If you aim at being exclusive, buy Coke. SAM'S choice is definitely not for persons like Warren Buffett.

Ad has never been objective and is very subjective in nature, in short, it is subjective sell propaganda. In that respect, ad is cunning, treachery and reduced to the least common denominator, trickery.

Humor is very important, since it reduces your ability to think critical. Very often ad appeals to your sub consciousness. Soap operas, where ad is shown in milliseconds. You do not register the message or the brand, but your subconsciousness does. Ad does not reflect reality. It reflects your dream about reality and that is quite another story. It is possible to sell nearly anything if the ad message is good enough. It is told that you can not buy luck and success. That is the exact purpose of advertising. It tells you that it is possible to buy luck and success.

When a company buys ad it buys a public. It buys the exclusive part of the population or young people. It buys you who want to be in, it buys you who want to be successful. It buys you who want to be obeserved with a coke in your hand or have a nearly filled green indicator on your internet site. You do not need to use words. The whole world can see that you are successful. You drive on the left side of the road. You are from UK and part of the Commonwealth. The rest of us other idiots drive on the right side. Now, Norwegian research, has even proved that for one reason or another it is more safe to drive on the left side. Did you say ad is information? It can be proved that the rest of the world is wrong and UK and some countries in the former British Commonwealth are correct. It may save lives if the rest of the world change their stupid practice of driving on the right side of the road.

In my left brain there is nothing right, and in the right part there is nothing left. Yes, you can sell expensive air or more precisely, smell with ad. You find some of the strongest brands in the smell industry. You may have the best product in the world. Without ad, you have no chance. Removing the Coke brand from the earth or Google’s little green indicator (unless Google wants it removed) is more difficult than tearing down the wall in Berlin. Only idiots fight Mr market. He is the worst dictator you ever meet, and he is always correct (at least in the long run). The Iron Curtain fell. Coke and Google's little green bar will (depending on Google's agenda) be there decades after this story was written in Moss, Norway 20th august 2007.

Did you say that the Queen of England buys ...

(C) kgun WPW member and owner of RedCarpetRank.com, PurpleRank.com and OrangeRank.com.

[aaron2005]

Google removed the "supplemental" label recently.

Removing a label | SEO Buzz Box

They surely will remove the greenbar when they become more of an authority/dictator?

I believe removing the supplemental label was just the start of their foolishness.

After-all, who cares about toolbar pagerank anyhow? That's right, SEOs...

You are correct kgun, it is all about marketing your brand, sadly this often has nothing to do with "quality", remember that word Google?

Marketing

is

a

type

of

drama

for

sure...

[tomcatuk]

If it goes, despite it's irrelevance, it's gimmick factor, it's abuse by unscrupulous webmasters, it's ability to distract us from what we ought to be concentrating on, I, for one, will miss it.

[incrediblehelp]

I actually hope they remove it.

[mit]

I don't think that Google will remove the PageRank toolbar in anyway... Many webmaster still consider it.

Even, mostly used in Link exchanging and buying and selling links....

[ctabuk]

mit - that's really one of Gooogs problems - they have created an 'economy' based on pagerank values - the economy is as phoney as the green line - yet people still believe in it.

[Webnauts]

For me as an SEO would be great if they remove the green toolbar. I hope though that they will reveal the PR in the webmaster tools.

David and by the way, why should people should not believe in the green bar? Because it is updated every three to four months? Does that exclude the fact that it is an indicator of the quality of a linking/popularity strategy 3-4 months out of date?

[tomcatuk]

I'd have to chime in on that - seeing no green at all always makes me wonder what exactly is wrong with a site unless it's obviously new.

[coolguy27]

What? Many webmasters rely on PR... They Linkexchange with green PR...I think if Google removes it many will be frustrated....

[dann]

I'd personally like to see it go but if you read that very long post above, clearly it will not.
Why would anyone install their awesome toolbar if it didn't show page rank. Not just for the cute buttons and a quarter inch of browser space I'm sure.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by coolguy27

What? Many webmasters rely on PR... They Linkexchange with green PR...I think if Google removes it many will be frustrated....

I think that will be funny and obviously cool. With this bloody green bar, the Web turned out to be a the biggest link farm of our sun system.

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

For me as an SEO would be great if they remove the green toolbar. I hope though that they will reveal the PR in the webmaster tools.

David and by the way, why should people should not believe in the green bar? Because it is updated every three to four months? Does that exclude the fact that it is an indicator of the quality of a linking/popularity strategy 3-4 months out of date?

Hi John, I've never been totally convinced that that has ever really been the case. There are massive sites with huge links and great SERP results with loads of hits everyday that are PR2 - I think the whole thing was a huge Google joke at the IT industry.

[kgun]

Come accross this page today while I was searching for favicon.

Web Browsers:

Market Share for July, 2007

• Internet Explorer - 78.98%
• Firefox - 14.37%
• Safari - 4.56%
• Opera - 0.89%
• Netscape - 0.75%
• Opera Mini - 0.24%
• Other - 0.22%

That is the drama in practice. I am from Norway, so I am not objective, but show me a more secure, efficient and web 2.0 ready browser than Opera.

Download the last version and click

1. View
2. Style

and you see what drama marketing really is.

Opera has a Google toolbar rank of 9, but as soon as Goolge launches their new browser I am sure it will soon get a toolbar rank of 10.

<off topic>
This is written after viewing our news, a half hour later than I wrote the above words. By the way, today is the official visit to our new opera that offically opens april 2008. No need for million of visitors there.

(Top) picture here that is updated at least every 10th minute with a web camera in Bjørvika.

</off topic>

[cz]

Toolbar? On two of my sites it looks nice and on two sites ok but not a reflection of my time and efforts. It can be aggravating

Directories are as mentioned, not really used much and seem like they exist for advertising selling listings (not all). I only use them to keep our name out there and listed in the directories, but we use GG or Y! to look for anything. Be interesting to see any effects as mentioned.

I don't think the bar's going anywhere - be nice if it was kept as udated as the "hiden toolbar" purported to exist right??

I'm not an SEO and use it for some decisions on links both ibl or obl - it might be relief to forget about it now that I think of it

[kgun]

There is at least one strong argument for the green bar.

It tells you something about the age of a site. There is little (at least a smaller) chance that an ecommerce site with a toolbar rank of 5 and above shall be a spam / scam site than one with a toolbar rank of 0.

Do you agree?

Private conclusion:
I would be less sceptical shopping online on a PageRank 5 and above site that on a PageRank 0 or 1 site.

[cz]

"Do you agree?"

Yes I do agree - on all counts Sir!

[khurramali]

Originally Posted by kgun

I would be less sceptical shopping online on a PageRank 5 and above site that on a PageRank 0 or 1 site.

I think this is where better business bureau logo, returns policy and other web awards, Secure payment options comes into play.

customer testimonials are very very important for an e-commerce website.

e-commerce requires attention to detail to the micro level.

Even colors, design and accessibility might adversely effect a sale from going through.

The Green Bar, is just one of the bars in the market, Alexa is another. And as I am a visionary so I predict that yahoo and msn would be coming out with similar features.

Example: Like you find 5 starts at Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com website, review of software products, by the general public plus the review of the staff of CNET.

[khurramali]

there is something fishy going on here, my anchor text in the above post was just

w w w . d o w n l o a d . c o m

but now after posting I see that it has changed to a SEO optimized Key Phrase.

After double checking I see that it is the title on their website.

What's going on?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by khurramali

Even colors, design and accessibility might adversely effect a sale from going through.

Today I checked the index site of my main site, MultiFinanceIT (preferrably view it in the last version of FF or Opera).

Failed validation, 181 Errors!

Try it yourself and look at the errors. What do they tell you?

That made me write a very short story last night on the Quality Contorl Page of the site. For your convenience, I can repeat it here:

Quality control and web development

Related to web development, the quality of a web page is about well-formedness, validity, usability, accessibilty and design. Idellay, the page (content) shall be available independent of the media it is presented on. Content shall be available in screen readers and and in a browser on your mobile phone. But first and foremost it is about content.

The paradox is that this site and more specifically this page is not well-formed and for that reason not valid. The reason is obvious. Since this site is ad driven, we have to import code as is from third parties. The concequence of changing the code can be that the link to the merchant is broken. Sometimes you have to choose between two evils and choose the lesser. The lesser is for us an unbroken link. But if you do not use code from third parties, you should make well-formed and valid code from the start. Nest tags properly and close them. Make the code XHTML, that is more generally, XML valid.

That page itself has 39 errors, all because of third party markup that I will not change for obvious reasons.

[dartman]

Originally Posted by kgun

Private conclusion:
I would be less sceptical shopping online on a PageRank 5 and above site that on a PageRank 0 or 1 site.

IMO the typical online consumer has no clue about green bars or PR. Further, some
sites with good PR, while probably less likely to rip you off, may be dogs when it comes
to customer service and product fulfillment. Using a credit rather then a debit card for
purchases is the best protection. As a PR toolbar user I agree in principal with your
conclusion as the green bar does help lend some credibility to a commerce-type site.

.

[kgun]

May be I should have used the term ceteris paribus that you learn in introductory courses in Economics.

That is take 1000 pages with BBBonline, Verisign etc sertification, 1000 pages with only https.

Ceteris paribus a high PageRank should ...

1. Have you got spam emails from sites that are online less than an hour? Do you think Joe surfer gets?
2. Have you got spam emails from sites that are online x hours (days)? Do you think Joe surfer gets?
3. Then the important questions is, could these sites have a BBBonline, a Verisign (true or false) sign?
4. Then the next question is what would you think of the pagerank of these sites?
5. You may know the Pareto 80/20 % principle. Pareto would also have said, that, ceteris paribus it is a Pareto improvement, and as such a welfare improvement, since Pareto optimality is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for welfare maximality if the high PR could prevent one online shopper from being scammed.
6. Note: ceterius paribus does not mean that shopping online only using the magnitude of the PR indicator is gererally recommended.
7. Take the persons that do not know anything about the PR indicator. Do you think they are able to see if a false picture of the Verisgin or BBBonline logo is cut and pasted into the html code? Are all of them clicking those signs? Could an advanced hacker hijack a true sites verification (e.g. through an advanced redirection) that Joe surfer does not note?
8. And when we dicuss secure shopping online. Why do you use IE to shop online? Do you know, IE's security zones give you false security. FF and especially Opera mentioned above with a market share less than 1 % uses more advanced security settings. Pop up message based on IE security zones, that is really dangerous and false security. First you have to download Opera when shopping online before I can take your security concerns seriously. It should be a real welfare improvement if persons shopped online using Opera and no other browser, at least of this writing august 28. 2007.
9. Conclusion: Ceteris paribus, a high pagerank indicates that the page has been online for at lest three months. Most probably longer.

[mothproof]

Originally Posted by coolguy27

What? Many webmasters rely on PR... They Linkexchange with green PR...I think if Google removes it many will be frustrated....

i think yeah this would cause frustration, but an enjoyable one.
we won't be looking down on websites with lower PR than ours.
Pagerank is not the great equalizer, after all.

[dartman]

per Google -
PageRank Display
"Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar's PageRank™
display to tell you how Google assesses the importance of the page you're viewing."

Importance can mean different things. Maybe G needs to change their definition.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by dartman

Maybe G needs to change their definition.

Aren't Google known for tweaking their algorithmes? Should they introduce the full specter of colours on that toolbar indicator?

Dark red: Site has only been online for a few minutes.

Lighter red: Site has only been online for a few hours.

Dark orange: This site is part of a large social network linkfarm.

Lighter orange: This site is part of a smaller social network linkfarm.



Is it only shuffled to the internal pagerank that is correlated with SERP position?
....

[Webnauts]

Kgun I read your last two posts. Great stuff man. Keep them coming.

[SemAdvance]

Ahh PageRank

I don't think I have done this here yet for the PR threads but its time

SpinalTap on PageRank:

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don't know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

I heard PageRank is going to 11.............

;->

[dartman]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

mit - that's really one of Gooogs problems - they have created an 'economy' based on pagerank values - the economy is as phoney as the green line - yet people still believe in it.

There's a statement I can agree with completely. Meant to post that before but got bogged up in other posts here about marketing, management, economics and latin.

[MajorTom]

If Google removes the toolbar pagerank it will not impact my business, but I do think they should do something asap regarding the issue. Either update the pagerank or totally remove it. I'm not a fan of "paid inclusion" directories or text-link-ads that use PR as a point of sale but it is an economy and it does feed other businesses areas such as hosting, web-design, freelance programming, etc.