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Silent Google Page Rank Update - Did it Really Happen?
Yesterday I had a rather pleasant surprise. While navigating around my blog to check out my latest readers from MyBlogLog I noticed that my page rank bar looked rather fat. I did a double take and sure enough I had been upgraded from the almighty to a page rank 4.
While it isn’t really that important to even bother about page rank, it sure as hell is for credibility amongst other bloggers.
I’m not sure what you guys do when browsing blogs. But when I check out what’s happening in the blogosphere I normally always glimpse in that toolbar to see where they stand in terms of page rank.
When I see a decent enough figure it tells me that this person is credible enough and obviously has a decent blog with decent traffic. Do you do this too, or do you focus more on the content of the blog itself without bothering to look at the little bar (come on, be honest here).
I know it is probably silly, but I have always done that, ever since I learned about page rank and how Google rules the Internet.
This doesn’t mean that I won’t read a blog that hasn’t got any page rank, or even think that they are not worth anything. Far from it actually.
But this little green bar just has that special attention grabbing effect, that coupled with a great headline will make me read on for more.
I wonder whether anybody else has experienced the same on their own blogs?
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I don’t look at page rank — not even on my own sites that are starting to pull in a little bit of change. Page rank is just one metric and not a terribly important one, in my simple view of things.
Of course that green bar thing in my Firefox browser is one thing I looked at just to see where that site stands. (Including mine) But I think it depends on what your goal is. To me higher page rank is like a first impression thing.
Ehm, I checked about a dozen sites of mine, some of which definitely are up for a page rank change, but nothing happened over here.
I had been in the same mind state what you are writing here until I come across some PR6 sites with really hopeless content. I did some research on the websites that link to it and found out that most of them are link exchange results and not like natural links coming from mention in posts or articles or under “the blogs I read” header.
I changed my mindset a little, and started reading each blog without looking at the green bar. And I see the example here itself, I have been reading EasyWordpress lately [Yes I am a pretty new reader] and until now, I never had looked at your green bar and did not think about it as well. I always used to go to the post directly through RSS feed and read, comment if I like and move on. Today after reading you, I checked it out.
But anyways, I really get amazed to see the impact of PR bar on readers’ mind. Remember guys, not all those with PR5+ are really great blogs, even a PR0 can give it enough competition in content or even surpass it.
@ Mike: thank you fore your input. It is great to see what you guys think which gives us all a better understanding on what really matters.
And it always has been and always will - good content.
@ Kai: you took the word I couldn’t find out of my tongue (first impression) Thanks
@ JR: Mmhhh…maybe it was the incoming links that did it. I noticed I had a couple of PR 5’s and PR 8 which should have helped I guess.
@ Life is Colourful: Thank you. What you said makes perfect sense and I agree with you. I’ve seen many very bad PR 5 and higher blogs which was often a result of having been online since some time and not due to their great content.
I too noticed a little green on the toolbar. I haven’t been working to get it there since the last backslide, I was kind of miffed. But hey, its there and on the way back up. So, nobody told me there was going to be a party. I’d like to think that my content out does some of the higher ranked pages I’ve visited recently. But I suppose its all a matter of personal preference when you get down to it. As for yours..its a good thing.