WebProNews

Google updated PageRank and backlinks Tuesday night, at approximately 8:30 PM (EST), SERoundtable announced Wednesday.

Join the ongoing discussion on this Google update at WebProWorld.

Google Keeps Everyone wondering....

While there is no specific time period between updates, Google in the past has updated PageRank on average every 3-6 weeks. As of Tuesday it had been approximately three weeks since the last update and anxious WebProWorld members had even started a thread predicting the next update when they began to notice changes.

"I think they're [Google] playing with our minds again," said a Best Practices Search Engine Forum moderator.

Shortly before the update, some SEOChat members began to notice the Google spiders crawling deeper into their sites. Datacenter fluctuations and "strange results" were also noticed by at least one member, who reported "three different rankings on three different tools" as well as old data showing up in results.

Several of the industry's leading forums are abuzz, discussing the results of this update. In this WebmasterWorld discussion a member reported "seeing some sites that were previously blocked from passing PageRank passing again."

Meanwhile, some members of the Best Practices Search Engine Forum noticed a dip in the number of reported backlinks, while others noticed an increase. It almost appears to be "a delayed backlink visible update without an actual update in the stored data," said Matt Peskett, Managing Director, Firetop Limited.

Changes weren't so obvious for some people.

"Not all of the datacenters have fully updated, so many people aren't seeing the update yet," said a WebProWorld member who goes by the handle 'jestep.' "It will probably take a few days to fully update across all of the datacenters."

"It is funny how we now drool waiting for the frequent [Google] updates," said SEOChat member Alexander Fry.

While you're drooling, you might want to check out the Future PR Tool. It works by running queries on the Google datacenters and searches for changes in PageRank. By querying the datacenters during an update, "you might get a glimpse of any upcoming changes in your site's PR values" the site claims.

PageRank Mania? Although many people are now reporting higher PageRank, Dave Hawley of http://www.ozgrid.com warns, "I would not get too excited. PageRank is only one of many factors..."

Over at Jimworld, a member commented, "There is a connection between PageRank and search engine results pages but I guess it's secondary to site content. However, every little bit helps right?"

Brittany Thompson is an administrator for WebProWorld.com and contributes to the Insider Reports with her regular articles and interviews.