There was a rumor going around that Google’s PageRank Toolbar display should only be used for entertainment, meaning that the green bar is not an accurate account of a site’s PageRank.
Is PageRank For Entertainment Purposes Only?
Does the green bar on Google’s toolbar have any real meaning? Or is it there only to entertain users? Discuss at WebProWorld.
According to Barry Schwartz of SearchEngineRoundTable.com, a post showed up on the SearchEngineWatch forum from an individual claiming to have inside knowledge concerning the PageRank display on Google’s toolbar. As indicated in the post:
“The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only. Due to repeated attempts by hackers to access this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequently because is it not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is several months old. If the toolbar is showing a PR of zero, this is because the user is visiting a new URL that hasn’t been updated in the last update.”
If this were true, it would mean all the people who worry about “the little green bar” are wasting their energy. Although, many would contend this is the case even if Toolbar PR is accurate.
Because the post contained information that supposedly came from a Google representative, news of Google PR being for entertainment purposes only elicited widespread surprise from the SEO community. As indicated in Barry’s synopsis: “we all knew PageRank was not something to look at too closely these days, but for Google to come out and say The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only’, kind of shocks me.”
Surprise was not the only sentiment being expressed by readers of John Galt’s post. Some of the more cynical in the SEO world were far less surprised and drew some degree of validation from the “news”. Poster KeywordMonkey had these thoughts:
“…if it’s (a fairly) pointless cosmetic feature that will inevitably mislead most web users, why keep it? It’s of SEO value of course – but who doesn’t have to re-educate clients about it?
In fact, I think Google should put a well written explanation on the toolbar download page stating what it does and doesn’t show, so we can point clients to that and then get on with the real job of SEO – making sure clients sites are spider and user friendly, with good content that Google etc. will be happy to send users to.”
In the comments section of Barry’s entry concerning the latest PageRank confusion, noted Google insider GoogleGuy flatly stated that the SEW post was mistaken. According to GG, “I’d strongly disagree with the statement that the toolbar PageRank is for entertainment purposes only’–millions of toolbar users use the PageRank display to judge the quality of pages. I think it’s also a little irresponsible to quote JohnGalt claiming to talk to some random person at Google, and then for you to quote it as a response from Google, which makes it sound more official.
I’m happy to refute that this is any sort of official stance.”
Unfortunately, most of the subsequent comments were generally reduced to “PR is worthless”, “No it’s not” debate. However, in the SEW discussion, Dave Hawley offered this thought that seemed to sum up just how important PageRank really is: “While PageRank may, or may not, be a big factor in SERP position. It can be a HUGE factor if a PR update sends you from page 1 to page 2, or vice versa.”
Barry, who was pleased that GoogleGuy came by and cleared up any misconceptions, had a thought that, even after GG’s comment, may still have a nugget of truth to it: “Apparently, Google is still using PageRank to rank sites but just not displaying the current value to the Google Toolbar user.”
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.