SEO News

Google PageRank update goes live

Many sites have recently seen a Google PageRank update.

Although the internet was awash with rumours about a possible September 2009 edit, it has taken till the end of October for changes to appear. A host of sites are reporting new PageRank ratings and some are happier than others.

To take just one example, a well-known UK company saw the homepage climb from a PageRank of 4 to 5 while one of its major subdomains enjoyed a spectacular jump from 0 to 4. However, a number of its less important pages actually dropped in value. One web commentator said that, in general, newer sites and those that were overlooked for the last update have been getting PageRank boosts but more established operators remained static.

PageRank updates in 2009

Of course, we've been here before. Google, doesn't tend to flag its PageRank updates - despite being relatively open about other changes to its ranking process - but industry analysts think there were at least three major updates in 2009 – March, May and June. It's thought Google changes PageRank about four times a year so this sounds about right.

For the uninitiated, PageRank is the most famous element of the Google ranking process. It relies on a complex series of calculations to establish the relative importance of different pages across the web. Although Google calculates scores continuously, the company only gives outsiders the odd glimpse of the process in the form of PageRank updates. Detailed internal ratings are simplified into a simple 0-10 score and exported, at which point they can be viewed externally by Google toolbar users. Recent news suggests that Google is gradually phasing out PageRank, although no official comment has been made by the search engine.

theEword online marketing manager Mark Baker said that the update gave digital companies basic feedback on their SEO techniques.

He said:

"PageRank isn't nearly as important as it used to be. However, it's a very simple way to see if a company's SEO practices are working. A positive PageRank update gives confirmation that a site is being recognised and approved by Google."

PageRank and the impact on search rankings

Of course, the key question is how does all this affect search rankings? On his official blog, Matt Cutts, head of Google's webspam team, gave a fascinating insight into the process after a PageRank update in October 2006.

"By the time you see newer PageRanks in the toolbar, those values have already been incorporated in how we score/rank our search results," he explained. "So you won't see any search engine result page changes as a result of this PageRank export – those changes have been gradually baking in since the last PageRank export."

This suggests the new PageRank update will not affect search engine results today. However, it does shed light on how Google perceives individual websites and that insight is worth its weight in gold.