Thanks for the Slap Google
10 March 2008 – 11:56 amA few days ago my own pagerank here on the jangro.com homepage dropped from 6 to 4. I was always a little dubious over my ranking of 6, so it must have been a very weak 6. Therefore, a 2 point drop isn’t that surprising. In comparison, Jeremy mentioned recently that Shoemoney.com just dropped from 6 to 5. At least I’m in good company.
I’m not really sure what could have happened here, inbound links are steady, if not up, I don’t sell posts, or even sponsorships (yet). I do have a few posts around here with some affiliate links in them, but that’s not the norm. And arguably, those are my most useful posts judging by traffic and comments.
Maybe it’s just a glitch.
Not to be all sour grapes and all, but I’m thinking this may at least partly be a good thing. My PR6 do-follow blog status has landed me pretty squarely at the top of the “Comment Monkey Todo List”. I’d love to fall off their radar. Are you guys reading? Nothing to see here, move along now.
That lining’s of course silver as long as my Google traffic doesn’t drop. It doesn’t seem to have been affected so far. It is a bit annoying to get slapped for nothing from a pure ego standpoint.
Elsewhere, there are lots of grumbling around about some recent Google activity. SERPS changes, PR changes, quality score changes. More weeding out what they consider bad user experiences.
How about you, do you see writing on the wall? Does Google and the traffic sources have their sights more and more on Affiliates and other online marketers?
And how about you and your websites?
Are you spending time looking over your shoulder, dodging bullets, and waiting for the next round?
Or what are you doing to just get completely out of the line of fire?
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19 Responses to “Thanks for the Slap Google”
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By Scott on Mar 10, 2008
Seems strange. Googles pagerank update has considerable changed a lot for me.
One of my newly purchased domains with very few backlinks went from 0 to PR4.
Another which has quite a few backlinks has just dropped from 5 to 0.
Seems strange. Although i doubt its todo with a change in the Algo. I think its more to do with people changing their outgoing link strategy.
Your Blog is an enjoyable read.
Its great.
By Microsoft Zune on Mar 10, 2008
One of my blogs dropped from a PR4 to a 0 last week. I removed my Text-Link-Ads and resubmitted the site for “reconsideration.” Did you add the ‘privacy policy’ Google is requiring now?
By Ceremonial Shovel on Mar 10, 2008
The privacy policy is just for Adsense.
By Scott on Mar 10, 2008
Page Rank? Just some green in a bar. Had one site that dropped Page Rank but traffic increased. If your traffic is still good, wouldn’t worry about it.
By Jonathan (Trust) on Mar 10, 2008
True Trust, I’m not worried.
It is a telltale and a metric among many.
It’s our little glimpse into what google’s thinking and interesting for that reason.
By Scott on Mar 10, 2008
I think the time has come for us to admit (and spread the word) that visible pagerank is a joke. I don’t know why Google makes it public, unless they think it can sell advertisers on AdWords. Who knows, they may decided to decrease pagerank because you don’t serve AdSense. They can do whatever they want. There’s no reason we should treat it like a serious metric.
By Sapphire on Mar 10, 2008
There has recently been a lot of real estate related sites that have been “slapped” in the google pagerank area.
Many have gone down by 1 or 2 points. At the same time, many have also gone back up and many people are still getting the same levels of traffic (and higher) - so it may not make that much difference.
By Mitch Argon, Reno Real Estate on Mar 10, 2008
In reference to Micro Zune, maybe it does have something to do with Scott’s outgoing link strategy. Could your do-follow links be having a negative effect on your overall site (PR only)? I doubt it…but some of Scott’s member’s names do look very text link buy-ish.
By Ben Winchell on Mar 10, 2008
Perhaps, Ben.
I would hope that Google’s not mistaking blog comment names (spammy ones at that) as paid links.
Maybe I should be selectively no-following the people with the spammy comment names to just plain discourage that (stupid, IMO) behavior.
By Scott on Mar 10, 2008
This round I got some site links. That was awesome and gave me a nice dose of perceived authority!
By Seduction Tips on Mar 10, 2008
There is nothing better than starting from a scratch. Any rank will be a promotion for me..lol
PR really does not matter. I did get site links for a website with PR 3 this time around lol.
By Vlad on Mar 10, 2008
Traffic is most important also. Anyway PR is for those who wants better banner ads rates. Higher PR means better rates from them, without any other reliable measure of the traffic the site is getting.
Think you are doing real fine here.
By Charles Wilson on Mar 11, 2008
They heard you love twitter and are punishing you for it.
By Pat Grady on Mar 11, 2008
Dammit Pat, that’s why I posted that on Revenews.
Can’t pull one over on the omniscient Google.
(throwing a big word your way to help purge Kerfuffle. oops, there it is again back to the top. sorry dude.)
By Scott on Mar 11, 2008
As mentioned previously, I would not worry too much about PR. What you should be concerned about, however, is the amount of traffic your blog is getting.
Keep up the blogs - they’re very interesting.
By Kristina Barnes on Mar 12, 2008
Scott, I wouldnt sweat the page rank fluxuation..its all about rankings and traffic anyways, so as long as that wasnt negatively affected you are fine…rock on!
By Evan on Mar 12, 2008
Thanks alot Ceremonial Shovel for your comments I will add privacy policy page in my site.
By Prai on Mar 13, 2008
I think it might have to do with their new calculation concerning directory listings.
By Brandon on Mar 17, 2008