For those not aware Stanford actually owns the patent to "PageRank", and Google has exclusive licensing rights to it- but only until 2011. The exclusive licensing rights from Stanford will expire shortly, and with It I think you will see the last of Google's Page Rank. With the advent of Google's new Search Engine (caffeine and Instant Search), I think they are effectively phasing it out. Form 10-k (2009) filed with United States Securities and Exchange Commission http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Google_(GOOG)/Filing/10-K/2009/F1931284 Page 15:
Like said in the google forum: "Internal pagerank is a notion Google's own secret algorithm. You cannot know how it's computed. Maybe that's part of the patent or not. A patent is basically a concept. Its technological implementation is another matter altogether and there are very good chances that you will not find that information freely available anywhere (e.g. as open source) even after the patent itself expires."
I agree that G is phasing it out. The original concept was innovative for its time, but now, PR has been abused to the point of being worthless. I am very curious to see how they will handle the toolbar. My bet is that they'll provide a whole new layout, new icons, new features and they'll hope that no one notices that the green bar is gone.
True, but some kind of page rating really helps bringing up good websites on top of google and bad websites lower -- their system just didn't function proper anymore, but that could be changed. I didn't know about this actually, good to know
Wow I can't believe you all. Pagerank is the main way for Google to "find" the overall trust flowing from links to a single page. Just because the patent expires or they lose their exclusive rights doesn't mean they're going to stop looking at links. (And it's even more stupid to think this is going to make them redesign a toolbar) All the other search engines are also measuring page trust in a way similar to "pagerank". Pagerank is one of the better ranking signals. It can't just be "ignored". If Google decides to stop "using" it that means they'll stop assigning trust to links based on the trust of a page. It's just a term. You're all basically saying "Google is going to stop looking at links to compute page authority."
See, thats were you are mistaken. When Google removed the PageRank from webmaster tools, they said this: Furthermore, Google "caffeine" is designed in part to detect link manipulations, and assign "link value", it then updates in real time the SERPs and is reflected in Google's "Instant Search" it also assigns "value" to a link dependent on the speed- Those that are slow, engage in "link manipulation", or otherwise are assigned little value, will see their value in the SERPs eroded. That is the way Google appears to be doing it now. Caffiene operates similiar to the Internal Pagerank, and external ranking is shown in Ranking of SERPs and Instant Search results.
Pagerank is still alive. PageRank is not dead. As I mentioned above, we continuously update our internal PageRank, and for the time being we'll continue to update the Toolbar PageRank occasionally. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=25ddb903338c4cb0&hl=en&start=40
Google Caffeine was designed to return results faster from faster pages. I agree with Susan. If she came to DigitalPoint she'd have a heart attack. 90% of the people here are trying to beat the system with some link exchanges or link wheels or directory submissions or other stuff. Do you realize how few people are actually "whitehat" here on DigitalPoint? Google doesn't want people to focus on increasing their pagerank. Google wants people to focus on improving their websites. They want people to focus on adding more unique and helpful content. They want people to speed up their sites. They want people to earn links because of the quality of the content they have created. That's why they removed that pagerank meter from the Webmaster Tools.
the changes Google has developed are being horrible some of the webmasters .and yes it may be the possible reason for last Pr update..
Google lose exclusive rights, but still have the right to use the Pagerank, do I understand correctly?
I think, Google will extend the rights for sure! Because of the PR scale, Google have been relying and working on the alg to predict the quality of the Websites and all. In short Google have acted as Dad of Internet by keeping this PR in hands.....
Here's the relevant section (in red type) of Google's 2009 report to the SEC — http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Google_(GOOG)/Filing/10-K/2009/F1931284 The first version of the PageRank technology was created while Larry and Sergey attended Stanford University, which owns a patent to PageRank. The PageRank patent expires in 2017. We hold a perpetual license to this patent. In October 2003, we extended our exclusivity period to this patent through 2011, at which point our license will become non-exclusive. The PageRank patent expires in 2017. Google's license to the patent is perpetual. Google's "exclusivity period" to the patent extends through 2011. So in all cases posters have discussed above, keep in mind that Google holds "exclusivity" to the patent for all of 2011. That's another full year from now.