Back in August, we discussed Google’s lack of a toolbar PageRank update, and speculated that it might simply be dead. Based on recent comments by Google’s Matt Cutts, we’re still leaning towards this.
Barry Schwartz points to a Twitter response from Cutts to a question about it:
@NielsBoschh I would be surprised if that happened.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) October 6, 2013
Roughly translated: Don’t hold your breath.
The last update came in early February. Historically, Google has typically updated the data about every three or four months. Last year, it was updated four times. Obviously things have changed. Even if it’s not dead, it’s even less useful than before, being updated so infrequently. It might as well be dead.
Cutts said in a video earlier this year, “It might be the case that, it might be such that over time, maybe the PageRank feature is not used by as many people, and so maybe it will go away on its own or eventually we’ll reach the point where we say, ‘Okay, maintaining this is not worth the amount of work.'”
That time may have already come and gone.
