Webmasters Ponder PageRank Discrepancy

By Jason Lee Miller - Mon, 01/14/2008 - 12:04

Is the Google Directory score the real score?

An update to the Google Directory has webmasters puzzling over an apparent discrepancy in PageRank scores.

Webmasters Ponder PageRank Discrepancy

For months, the speculation surrounded an apparent decrease in PageRank scores on Google's Toolbar. It seemed the decrease in rank was connected to penalties associated with buying and selling links that passed on PageRank, a practice Google not-so-quietly condemned last autumn.

But what was more confusing was that though the toolbar scores were dropping, the actual search rankings looked to be unaffected. Google appears to have updated its Directory on January 8 along with PageRank scores that are significantly higher than listed on the toolbar.

Observers say the Google Directory update seems to be pulled directly from DMOZ, the open directory project. As a result, Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable joins others in discrepancy reports:

"…it seems like the Toolbar PageRank of this site is a PageRank of 4. But if you look at the most recent Google Directory update, this site appears to be a PageRank of 7."

There are few theories posted about why this is occurring, Andy Beard explains how this could be problematic for advertisers looking to assess the true value of a website:

"It seems Google used their real dataset for PageRank for the Google Directory export, forgetting that they are telling their millions of users lies on their toolbar with manual penalties, which until now had no visible proof.

"Google have the right to do whatever they like with their search engine, but this is another major demonstration of how Google are manipulating public and advertiser opinion."

News Tags: Search, SEO, Google, DMOZ, Google Directory, Toolbar, PageRank

About the author:
Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology.

49 Comments

By SEO Company (WPN reader) - Fri, 12/05/2008 - 01:43

Useless metric

Page rank is a pretty useless metric nowadays, lets hope eventually the little green bar will be removed to prevent confusion for webmasters and business owners who are still using an antiquated system!

By imd (WPN reader) - Fri, 10/31/2008 - 08:10

please help me

our website http://www.adailydeals.com is good for coupons and deals.
how can we get good PR

By product articles (WPN reader) - Tue, 09/02/2008 - 13:57

Great article

Another great article, thanks for the information.

By Newfoundland Business Directory (WPN reader) - Tue, 09/02/2008 - 10:52

PageRank is for the Birds

you can still have great SEO but be a low PageRank site.

By Firebubble Design (WPN reader) - Sun, 08/31/2008 - 07:57

PR Change

I know that google has been penilizing sites for selling links. One site I know went from a PR7 to a PR4.

By Gifts Ideas KeepItPersonal (WPN reader) - Sat, 08/16/2008 - 08:22

Page Rank Up Unique Views Halved

Strange I have a new site that lauched in May and my clicks have dropped from 250 down to 100 in a month although PR has gone from 0 - 3? I have also submitted to Yahoo directory 4 weeks ago and havent seen any increase in clicks...?????

By Los Angeles SEO (WPN reader) - Fri, 08/01/2008 - 20:09

Google PR update

The new update is here, and it seems like PR's are all over the place. Some sites that you would think are getting a boost dropped, and some sites that I was sure would drop increased in PR... strange the way the updates work, but it's not a perfect system. I just focus most of my energy on good links, content, and rankings.

By Firebubble Web Design (WPN reader) - Thu, 07/31/2008 - 07:07

New PR

Google has recently updated its page rank, it seems they have changed the cached interface also.

By Royal Oak (WPN reader) - Tue, 07/15/2008 - 06:08

PR

End of the month new PR distributed

By Technology News Maniac (WPN reader) - Tue, 06/17/2008 - 19:42

PR updates

"It was my understanding that by the time the toolbar is updated, it's already out of date according to it's real PR"

What you see in the toolbar is a pagerank export. It's done every 4-5 monts so of course it`s out of date...

By Website Design Pennsylvania (WPN reader) - Sat, 05/17/2008 - 10:58

Clients love Page Rank

The only way my clients seem to understand their success is through the PR.

By Web Design Pennsylvania (WPN reader) - Sun, 05/11/2008 - 21:35

Google Page Rank Links

All of my sites went up in rank. But I do have an off topic questions. Does the page rank of a site have an effect on the site it is linking to. For example, if a site with a page rank of 5 is linking to my site, does the page rank of 5 have an effect on the quality of the link, and therefore increase my rank in Google?

By Adam - Creare Web Design (WPN reader) - Fri, 05/09/2008 - 09:31

Page Rank

I was disappointed with the latest PR update. I expected my Web 2.0 blog to reach at least 2 with the SEO I had applied but it only got a 1. Anyway, I think the toolbars take longer to update.

By Kathi (WPN reader) - Tue, 02/12/2008 - 12:59

PR dropped to zero overnight

My blog went from PR3 to PR0 overnight - which is costing me money - and I'm MAD. I don't participate in linking schemes or do anything that Google would deem "illegal"... I have no earthly idea why they'd do this to me.

By Andrei (WPN reader) - Tue, 07/15/2008 - 08:08

why?

why are you losing money because the PR dropped?

that means you say you are selling PR?

thats pretty stupid to yell and admit you are selling whatever you sell based on the little green bar you have there

By Page Rank Info (WPN reader) - Fri, 03/28/2008 - 23:40

Maybe you just lost a whole

Maybe you just lost a whole bunch of you links because a site that had your link on an abundance of it's pages was shut down. (that has happened to my site before)

By Perfect Wealth Formula (WPN reader) - Mon, 02/11/2008 - 03:40

looks to be fine

Weeks later it looks like it all is working out just fine, at least on my pages. There was some confusion because of some reciprocal links I had on my blogs, but after cleaning them up a bit, and increasing the one way links it worked out to be better than it was before the shake, which is great.

Cheers,

Justin

Cruise To Cash

By Todd (WPN reader) - Sat, 02/02/2008 - 08:39

Sudden Loss of PR

I went from a PR of 4 to 0 over night. I had been using Kontera on my site. I've since removed it. Do you think this is the reason for the loss?

By jon (WPN reader) - Thu, 01/31/2008 - 04:05

pr

does google even bother with DMOZ anymore ?

By Sidekicks (WPN reader) - Thu, 01/17/2008 - 00:31

Thanks for the interesting

Thanks for the interesting read. I checked my pr for some of my sites and they have gone up. I have ssen a small uptick in traffic in the last few days as well.

By Pixel Head (WPN reader) - Wed, 01/16/2008 - 13:48

PR Update

Mine was down to 3 from 4 in the last, but back up to 4 in this one. It does seem to be loosing ground in many arenas.

By Azor Israel (WPN reader) - Wed, 01/16/2008 - 08:44

Google toolbar is always off the mark

I got large increase in traffic to three of my sites and moved up in most of the other major search engines. After adding a number of backlinks and major SEO I was looking forward to the new google rankings, but I was not impressed. Well my pagerank for google did'nt change. Garner NC City Guide

By Mtuba4u (WPN reader) - Wed, 01/16/2008 - 03:09

Page Rank Issues

Page rank uses a very different algorythm and is thus very different in each area. hence DMOZ and google have different PR values for same site. PR has nothing to do with the search results, which use a very different algorythm. PR is taken into account but the acual value of the PR is used in strange ways where calculus is applied to the numbers to obtain a limit. There are more than 1200 variables in googles algrythm, and these are applied using extreme mathematics that take all 1200 PLUS variables into account. most variables are interdependant which causes more confusion for web masters and SEO technitians. example: a)value of key words on page are used in page rank calculation b) page rank figures are used to calculate value of key words for site. c) value of key words for site are used to calculate value of key words on page. d) this then affects calculation in (a) this short piece is reiterayed untill the value reaches a limit. once the limit has been reached the value is then placed into other pieces of the algorythm where a very similar process is applied. in these calculations some items are given a positive value, and others are given a negative value. the advanced mathematics using calculus has many co-efficients and some values are squared, cubed, and raised to higher levels according to googles percieved importance of this value. if your site just so happens to have a negative value in the wrong area, it will reflect in your SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) People especialy SEO professionals and their assitants often forget the size of the GOOGLE data base, and the number of online computers that GOOGLE uses to manipulate the SERP's through their extreme algorythm that uses very strange and ever so complicated mathematical equations with more than 1200 variables in a single equation. Then of course there is the thing of manual eddits which is hotly contested with much debate and counter debate.

By IM Specialist (WPN reader) - Wed, 01/16/2008 - 02:51

Google is Googling Now

Yes, Google is Gooooogling. People are confused about their page rank, now page rank is just like share market points, some times it ups & some times it downs.

Just like when share market ups, there is big smile on Investors & when it down Investors are crying, same here with Page Rank, when it increases webmasters are enjoying, when it downs webmaster also sit behind their computer to find, "how can PR of our site is down" & pulling their hairs.
.br> I noticed in this PR & Backlink update, that Google counts one way links coming from one way directory submissions, forum posting & articles. Backlinks of our most of the sites are increased & most backlinks are comes from directories.

I am Happy with U, my Sweet Google.

DO GOOOOOGLING

By sample13.com (WPN reader) - Wed, 01/16/2008 - 00:32

Im still new.

I never really noticed the change because I just started to worry about pagerank recently. Im not worried. http://www.sample13.com

By qiu (WPN reader) - Tue, 01/15/2008 - 22:02

Change of My site

None/10->0/10

By jonathon (WPN reader) - Tue, 01/15/2008 - 21:17

lost in google

6 of my sites lost PR in the last update, i can't see what i did as all them used googles ads.

By Developer_chris (WPN reader) - Tue, 01/15/2008 - 19:50

the secret to google and rankings

The secret to how to treat google is simple. When you want something, use it to search with. for EVERYTHING ELSE simply forget they exist.

For years they have said exactly this, they don't want you to worry about them, let them worry about you. Provided you do the right thing they will index you. If your ranking and serps go up and down try not to sweat it. Its the nature of the game if the serps were static then nobody new would ever make the results page. so by their very nature the serps will change, your position will fluctuate.

As far as the toolbar goes I dumped that a couple of years ago. I simply do not need that level of stress in my life!

If not Google is not doing its job.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Tue, 01/15/2008 - 15:55

If google thinks your selling links they will give you a PR0

If google thinks your selling links they will give you a PR0 on the next update Worse If google thinks your selling links or buying links Google may give you the go to the end of the serp,s penalty and you will find your site on the last serp's page Google is going to be history soon it is now easy to knock down your competitors. Google will go to sh*t as the best site are remove by the worst. Reverse seo will soon be king just knock out the top sites to rank #1 give them the go to the end of the serps penalty Should us webmaster do a Google boycott day or week where we all remove adsense and use a different search engine and maybe promote a alternative search engine goole will lose millions a day if it goes far enough and will have to fix this problem

By Mr Cute (WPN reader) - Tue, 01/15/2008 - 14:03

Google Is Evil

Google is the most evil force on this planet. I believe they are entirley responsible for manual editing that is leaving millions of web sites in the dark whilst government santified sites are allows great rankings. The days of freedom on the internet are gone and Google is our enemy.