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The Google Toolbar PageRank Demystified
nywanna writes "SEO is an extremely unpredictable aspect of running an online business. Every month the rules change slightly, and with every rule change we receive new bad information from speculators and those who spew nothing but conjecture. David Harry looks at one of the greatest Google misconceptions and bits of misinformation that exists right now:
This brings me to the greatest mythological creature to roam the Google landscape since 'the sandbox'; The Google Toolbar PageRank (TBPR) system. While the jury may still be out on the 'sandbox,' I am here to slay the beast that is the TBPR, right here, right now."
Evidently readers of the referenced article are expected to be familiar with this acronym, but why is Slashdot assuming that its readers are?
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aseo&start= 0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozil la:en-US:official
I'll probably be modded down for this...
The Google Toolbar PageRank Demystified ?????
There was no demystification here, just a call to kill / ignore it. I like the summary though at the end of the article : Make your own conclusions;
Pagerank is useless? Don't tell me that when I just got my pagerank up to 6!
Philosophy.
What's this? Maybe this only concerns people who have or are infected with a "google tool bar".
Its the Google PR displayed if you have the google tool bar installed
This is old news - the pr that it displays is almost worthless and I bloged about this ages back here Back in April. We did some tests and created a stand alone page on a brand new domain that we got a displayd PR of 5 in a couple of weeks.
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It was just you.
This guy said nothing in a long tedious way.
So here I go into that article thinking that PageRank and its algorithms will be talked about, and all the author does, is go on a rant about how he gets more 'targetted traffic' on a low rank site versus a high rank site...
Was there anything useful in that article?
I think there were more Acronyms used in that article than ive ever seen before. Looks like the Author just wanted to sound like he knew what he was talking about by throwing out every acronym known to his little clique of developers. (im guessing SOE's or whatever)
Now, had he gone into detail about getting 'targetted traffic' and not just spouting off that he knows how to, but just seemed like it was a 2 page rant on why Google isnt as good as it claims to be. Also note the Pro-MSN search tidbit thrown in there too.
No, but I can imagine a surfer finding the camera of his dreams and buying it from some schlock electronics outfit with an artificially high page rank.
Page Rank seems to work on the premise that the more a site is linked to, the more valuable it is. So if five million people link to a white supremacist site, that means there's valuable content there, right?
This is where Google's power is diluted and why a lot of the searches I do seem to come up with pretty crappy results. PageRank is pointless, if only because a) actually useful sites may very well not get linked to very much, as no one wants the sites overrun by the whole Internet or b) uselss sites with drivel for content may be over-linked because a few million idiots think that the content is the word-of-the-lord.
What is needed is a personal page-ranking system -- a central repository where people can rate websites based on factors that matter (ease of use, content, etc.), kind of like the Zagat guide to web sites. It's not enough to blindly search for any site that links to the data I want; I need it to link to site that have the data I want and have it a useful/easy-to-find format.
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I know this is slightly offtopic - but what info does he have for or against sandboxed sites? If you're actually active in the SEO community this article will be old news to you (as opposed to having only a passing interest in SEO, resulting in over emphasis on PR -- lots of SEO clients have this problem).
The sandbox however is a problem many of us are still grappling with. Do any slashdotter's have any insights into Google's sandbox?
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Create a useful and unique web page/business, and you will appear at the top of the list. Anything else is just cheating, and it's exactly what Google is trying to prevent.
mund freud.
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
Actually, I've done exactly that. After dismissing it based on the pagerank I read up on the site and found that it was in fact crooked. The author shouldn't take things for granted just because he doesn't trust pagerank...
If you've looked at the SEO world at all, you know that there are lots of people who write half-assed articles so they can have more unique content on their web site. Or, they offer those articles up to other sites to get links back to their site. The articles never really say anything, and are just an attempt to build up traffic.
And then once in a while Slashdot goes and links to one of those useless articles on one of those web sites. Imagine how much money that guy just made from all the Slashdot visitors, not to mention the pagerank boost from a Slashdot link. And for an article that bad that he knocked out without really putting any effort into it?
Wow.
If you aren't into cheating with cloaked pages and doorway pages, the best way to get targeted traffic is to add value to visitors' experience. They come to your site, find its a good site, and spread the word. The more useful and relevant your site, the more visitors will return. In a nutshell, make a good site. Simple, really. I wouldn't be surprised to find that pagerank was a decoy set up to distract search engine marketers and let google go about its business.
I'm in full agreement that creating useful, relevant content is the cornerstone of website success. But it's not as easy as that. Pagerank is not a decoy - it is what allowed Google to take over as top dog in the search world. The core concept behind PageRank is that if a site is linked to by other sites, this must be for good reason. It is an indirect method of determining relevance. Of course it has been gamed over the years, but PageRank still matters. If it didn't, we'd all still be using AltaVista.
The trickiest part of getting noticed by engines is obtaining useful inbound links. If people can't see your site, they won't be able to evaluate it and (hopefully) link to it. It's the old marketing conundrum. How do I get the word out about this great thing I've created, when I'm just one fish in a giant ocean? Some people go the quick and dirty route, using search engine spamming techniques, which are akin to the scummy marketing tactics of snail mail advertisers (ever received a piece of mail seemingly related to your home mortgage, and found it was actually an ad from a competing lender?).
Just as with traditional offline marketing and advertising, there are legitimate ways to put the word out. They're slower and more labor intensive than fast buck methods, but they can help. Inbound links from well-respected sites, proper use of markup, clearly-written listings in directories, and keyword targeting can help your site gain visibility while helping searchers at the same time. Sites that ignore SEO can succeed, but most that do succeed rely on SEO to at least some degree.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
MURL:http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/> shows you which words are associated with your site. This gives a much clearer idea of how google views your site than pagerank alone, as your pagerank can be fixed by posting links to your site all over the place.
This is also usefull if you are thinking of running adwords on your site, as it gives you an idea of what types of ads will appear on your site.
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You're missing the point of the Google toolbar in the first place: it's not to help out SEO guys, it's to help out average-joe surfers. Think about it, the LGB is a graphic representation that is meant to be easily understood at a quick glance: user sees high PR, user clicks/buys product on page. Voila! High PR does work after all! PR may not mean that much in the big picture of SEO from the SEO guys' perspective, but it means a whole lot from the user perspective. And isn't that what we're all trying to do in the first place; get the user to click? LGB still has LOTS of value.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: SEO is bullshit.
You want good rank and good hits? Write good content.
Try to search for information on a specific product, esp. a piece of hardware. In a lot of cases you have to get tricky to see anything in the first page or two (I get 50 results per page) besides lots of sites claiming the lowest price on whatever you're looking for. I love it (NOT) when I see something like "Lowest prices... comparison of ..."; I go there, and there's not even a useful *link* to a comparison.
I'd be *much* happier with google if they gave me a box to click to "turn off shopping sites".