So for those of you who follow the exciting world of SEO, we have the sports excitement equivalent of an SEC upset. (like the use of SEO and SEC in the same sentence? I know ya do)
Let’s go back to October of this year. Matt Cutts (Google’s head engineer in charge of “WebSpam” whose job it is to effectively make sure that search results are as Google wants them with no pesky non-relevant sites show up anywhere) said “I would be surprised if that (a PageRank update) happened (in 2013).
Well, I assume there was a LOUD “OH SNAP!!” heard from Matt Cutts’ office when this morning magically all PR metrics have been updated – and per his tweet in October – I can only assume Mr. Cutts was at the very least “surprised”. I know – I know he probably knew it was coming and this was just a way of making people think it was going away – but still it’s interesting right – director of the group says – “No more updates this year likely” and wham . . . . not like Google to look not so organized.
So who cares? What does it all mean? . . . . Get to the point . . . . .
So, if you don’t know, PageRank is Google’s magic algorithm that helps users understand a website’s “authority” based on a scale from 1-10. For instance Google’s own search/home page is PR9 – Facebook’s is a PR9 as well . . . . Your local dentist or favorite sushi place’s site is probably a PR1 or 2 – maybe 3 if they have some one who knows what they are doing working on their site for them.
There had been a fair bit of discussion and speculation related to if Google was ever going to update PageRank because some SEO consultants were learning how to “work” the system and gain what could be seen as an “unfair” advantage by both learning what effected PR and targeting certain PR sites for backlink building. The thought being that why give these guys information that they may turn around and actually use to game our own rankings system. And, as almost 10 months had gone past since Google’s last PageRank update – many concluded that it was history. Some new companies even came out to develop systems that track similar metrics that helped fill the gap after the PageRank updates fizzled out.
So, now we have a recent PageRank update – all is back right with the world – Google has decided that it must have some value. We have new supporting metrics that were spawned partly because of the lack of recent PageRank updates – which is even more awesome. We can now bask in the glow of new and better data – the fact we can harass Matt Cutts a little about his misplaced tweet – and continue to discuss what it all really means to how your site actually ranks on Google.
It is truly like Christmas in . . . . well like Christmas on December the 6th!!
Did you see a change in PageRank to any of your sites? Good or BAD???
