A friend of mine who frequents other SEO forum’s said there are a lot of discussions that we’ll finally see a Google update this weekend. I haven’t seen any similar threads or speculation at Digital Point forums. Has anyone else read that Google is getting ready for a Page Rank update? Thanks, Harry
I think speculating on google "updating" (pr I assume) is a waste of time. All that matter are your rankings. Doesn't really matter what the green bar tells you. SERPs change daily, that is the thing to watch.
I agree. Google updates all the time. No reason to wait and anticipate the next one. If you keep optimizing your site and getting more backlinks, it will show.
I agree with both lorien and SGH, but I have to add, that little green bar does make a difference if you are selling links.
Surely it must be making less and less of a difference as the time since it last meant anything (i.e., was last updated) lengthens...
Personally, I'd like to see if my little green bar goes up because there's never been a tool bar update since I've started optimizing in earnest. I'm curious to see if I did manage to get that bar to move.
The speculation I have read seems to be broader than just a backlink/PR udate. There is no question that some of Google SERPs and the way they have either downgraded or ignored some web sites has been inconsistent and incomprehensible. I personally have said, and I'm not alone in this, that Google was broken. Much of the speculation I have read is that their entire index and SERP placement results may get redone on some type of consistent basis. PR is always an interesting curiosity, albeit I believe virtual irrelevant today. However, nobody can figure out what the hell Google has done with the "link:" search results. It would be nice to see this regain some consistency and rationality.
I think it's interesting that people keep saying that... How exactly is "Google" broken? Google is a search engine who's goal is to give relevant results. As a whole, their results are a lot more relevant than any other search engine I've seen. So if Google is broken, then Yahoo and MSN are REALLY broken.
I would definately say that Yahoo is broken. Their results are often irrelevant for what I'm looking for...
They are broken because they are inconsistent. Yes the results are reasonably relevant to any given search, but I believe there are pages and sites that have equal relevance that are just not included and appear to be ignore for no discernible reason. Then take the result of your own Keyword tracker tool. I have a very competitive keyword for one of the sites I track that is consistently between 20 and 40th place. But frequently it will drop off the radar screen all together -- I know that only means it is no longer in the top 100 or 200. And then the next day or two days later jump right back into 25th place. Now the stemmed version of that phrase -- in this case the plural -- is between 10 and 20th place and never moves out of that fairly narrow range. These are the machinations of a broken system in my view.
Just because there is movement, doesn't mean it's broken. How do you know it's not by design? If took random people, and they looked at the top 1,000 sites in random order for whatever the search term is, do you feel that they would consistently pick your site as being one of the most relevant sites (even a ranking of 40 would put it in the top 4%)? If you can't HONESTLY say 'Yes' with some certainty, then Google isn't broken when it comes to your site/terms. Google's goal is to return the most relevant results, not the most optimized.... people seem to forget that sometimes.
and if your trying to get reciprocals. as for discussions on updates - i think alot of people generally get itchy fingers towards the end of each month - and especially when it has been this long since G updated - all that has to happen is someones site goes up or down a few places and all of a sudden they're crying "PR update is coming!" (ahem, not that i'm an innocent party ) Personally though i do have a suspicion there could be a big change around the corner.
DP is spot on - it's "broken" from a search engine optimiser's point of view, due to the results of link: and the lack of PR changes, but for the day to day user of Google the results are generally very good. Users of Google search engine are the types of people Google are working to please, not SEO or webmasters, sometimes I think we all forget that.
Bullshit! We don't forget that. I can show you sites that by any standard are at least as relevant as sites in the top 20 or 30 and which don't even rank in the top 1000. I did not say that the sites Google presents in the top 50 aren't relevant. I said that they are not necessarily the 50 most relevant and there are other sites that are just as relevant, or more so, that don't even make it into the top 1,000. Go look what happen to the McDar page. It's the same page. It always has been. How can a system that claims to measure relevance, and relevance only, jerk a page around like Google has done with that page. If it is the 17th or 18th most relevant page today and nothing has ever changed on the page how could it possibly have been only the 300 plus most relevant page a month ago? The system is broken! It is inconsistent, irrational and incomprehensible. The system is broken! Did I mention that system is broken? I'm going to join up with Anthony and call you all a bunch of Google worshippers in a minute.
If pieces of the system are not working correctly (i.e. toolbar PR), then it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that the system itself is not working correctly. Is Google broken? I don't know, but obviously at LEAST one piece is broken...hence, more could be broken as well. Difficult to trust a system, when parts of it are obviously rusty and old.
Had to make sure I didn't get on your google worshipper list, compar. Would hate to think what terrible fate would fall upon me then.
Compar I do agree with you, the rankings are irrational and flawed. But just one thing... Who ever said that it was broken. GG said that they were possibly going to be moving over to quarterly updates of toolbar PR (It's over a quarter now though) - and I have no doubt that something along those lined has in fact been implemented. Toolbar PR works just fine. They just haven't pressed the little button that says "update".