Last week, as Brittany tells us here, Google updated its Page Rank and backlinks. As I’m sure most of you know, every few weeks Google does a similar update and without fail -as sure as day follows night, the SEO community immediately starts humming with the excited chatter of their shiny new Toolbar Page Rank (henceforth TPR). When I see these updates and the ensuing furor that results from a little green bar moving 1/8th of an inch, four words come to mind: don’t believe the hype.

Google Page rank is based on back links. Back links are Links pointing to your website from another website. The more back links you have the higher your PR will be.

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

One popular method of raising rankings is the buying of links from high PageRank sites that often have no relevance to the subject of the buyer’s site. Google discourages this practice, stating, “Many sites that advertise link-sharing programs not only offer little value., but will distribute your email address without your permission.”

Links have been a factor in ranking well in the SERPs for a long time now, but recently they have become much more important, especially when seeking high rankings on Google. Because of this, incoming links have turned into a hot commodity, especially from high PageRank sites.

With thanks once again going to Andy Beal, WebProNews has discovered a bad case of spam on Teoma’s search engine results. A search for the keywords “company names” finds that one site has several mirrored listings in the resources section.

Our “New Google Bomb” discussion in WebProWorld is one of our most popular to date, but the question remains, how does this phenomenon affect search optimization?

WebProWorld’s been buzzing with talk of a link on one of Google’s pages to a page (with PR 9) that sells links. That’s right – it appeared that Google was deliberately sending PR to a page whose business was selling text links to the highest bidder.

Some sites that sell text links get their PageRank banned – in other words, Google reduces the value of their outbound links to nothing. Their PageRank still appears at normal levels, but the PageRank is not passed to any pages they link to.

“The heart of our software is PageRank.” This quote, from Google’s PageRank description page, contradicts opinions and hypothesis posted on forums, blogs and articles around the web. One search developer even called PageRank “a silly idea in practice.” Evidence points to Google not using “classic PageRank” in their algorithm at all these days, and many consider it all but dead.

A thread at the HighRanking forum discusses a Tripod site’s rapid rise to a PageRank of 5. Jill Whalen, who owns the forum, suggested it could be a result of ghost PageRank.

Those who watch their PageRank closely may be interested in this purely speculative concept from the fine folks at SEORoundtable – fractional PageRank.

Tomi Hs compiled all the frequently asked questions he’s encountered as a member of the google.public.support.general newsgroup over the years and broke them down into seven sections on this useful but unglamorous site.

Google updated PageRank on the 7th, a fact noted in many forums, including WebProWorld.

If you have done some serious reading about your website optimization, you probably would have come across the reference to the phrase “optimization of anchor text”. This article shall discuss the definition and importance of anchor text and how you can use this powerful website optimization feature to get high ranking in search engines.

If you’ve been using JavaScripts on outbound links from your webpages in an effort to preserve your PageRank you should quit – for two reasons.

If you’ve been on a link building campaign lately and would like to check on the fruits of your labor (your PageRank) then click over to Rusty Brick’s new PageRank predictor.

A man in Southern California is irate over the results of “Googling” his name. Mark Maughan, certified public accountant of the Brown & Maughan firm, believes the search results for “Mark Maughan” contained “alarming, false, misleading and injurious results.”

The confusion still weaves its way slowly around the Internet about Google’s PageRank and exactly how it affects your website. Many people are under the belief, that a high PageRank will give you high rankings for your website. You couldn’t be further from the truth in actual fact. Below I have listed some basics about PageRank for those who think otherwise:

Like many other useful toolbars out there so is the Google Toolbar. I consider this toolbar a must have for any serious search engine optimizer and anyone who searches the internet on a regular basis. Here’s why

Uncovering The New Algorithm

There have been all sorts of theories put forward about Google’s new algorithm. What I present here, as far as I can tell, fits the facts at hand. You are welcome to disagree with me.