This is NOT a thread about when the PR update is lol so READ IT Dont give random or unrelated replies. I curious to know why Google is not able to update pr live everyday lol. For example Alexa seems to be pretty current not saying their system is that great... But with all the power and money Google has I'm surprised one update takes about 3 months to happen on the toolbar. If they want to consider it a real rating system of a site shouldn't it be up to date not 3 months behind when people view a site? I just find it odd they cant do this.
Very interesting topic. For one I would say the update was done on a daily basis, it would be much easier to understand the way the Algo works, and I'm guessing this isn't something they want to happen.
Maybe you should post this as a feature in Webmaster Central http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/webmaster-console-features/ It would be interesting to see Google data fluctuating daily, but it may make it less credible and reliable
What they don't update daily is the ToolBar PR, not real PR, when in fact any change in your PR affects your SERP position instantly. Maybe the question to ask for is, what would they lose if they haven't shown it at all, it could help them some about preventing PR link sales, which they hate. After all, i'm happy with the way it is.
Why would they want to? Ever since they put that silly little graph on their toolbar, people have been selling each other links at inflated prices and trying everything to manipulate Google's index. It wouldn't be in their interest to make the problem worse.
Because people would focus too much with ranking and backlink instead of create a good content for their site.
They update real PR constantly, but choose not to update toolbar PR as often. I'm as curious as OP to find out the reason, which I don't think is simply to stop link sale.
yup i have to agree with you mystik. Im sure there is some sort of reason behind them doing it every 3 months
I think google have to consolidate the data ,calculate it before release the new update. However, with their resource, i believe they do have the ability to perform "live" update.
Even going one step further, I am not sure why 3 months, why not 3 days, 3 weeks. I understand that they cannot update a site every minutes of the day, (what would be the point), but as they have the info they should make it available. G visits my site at least 3 or 4 times a day, (that I know of), so surely they could update my rankings once a week at least. 3 months just seems very long. FFMG
Almost a billion sites to look at, with god knows how many pages total. Crunching those numbers is resource intensive and would be a tremendous waste of money. For they system to be "live" google would have to have spiders on every page of every site, collect the telemetry, and crunch the numbers several times an hour. The resources simply are no there nor the need.
I believe the real PR is 'Live' indeed but not the PR from the toolbar. So if you are wondering why they don't roll out a toolbar with live PR... IMO, from G point of views because it is not necessary. Why spend money for that? Does G made a profit by showing live PR in the toolbar? or G benefit by it? Hardly. I see more people will be able to test out how the PR work if they can see the live PR easily. Just my $0.02
Do they have any incentive to? No...I thing elements of the algo will be exposed if they updated PR daily
If it were live, I think we'd all be tinkering 24 hours a day. Mind you, as someone above commented, the wheeling and dealing in links would just be crazy - buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell.
Why do you think Alexa ratings are less reliable and credible, because the data changes too much and can easily be exploited by those who know how to influence the ranking. Fluctuating data will always be less credible because it doesn't give proper information all the time. One day your site can perform as a PR7 and the next day it can perform as a PR1, that would not give a good balance of how your site performs on average.