Just go back to the threads right here in the forum from 4/2004 or so and you will see all of the crap we used to fight about.
Great post. Google has been publicly embarassed by having their own pages affected by the 302 redirect. It was only logical that they would now have to accept that it exists, and clean it up. At what point they decided it existed is not completely clear; I was trapped and pushed down by one until the Feb. update. Look back to posts around then by me. They fixed something then, and many of the sites (and types of sites) that were causing me harm dropped those pages like a rock. But it continued with other methods... and Google itself got caught in one. There were still old pages from redirect schemes in the cache, which meant that backlinks were still being wrongly attributed. The cache would have to be dumped. PR would have to be recalculated from the top. From what I have read on TrustRank, it would be just as vulnerable to manipulation as PageRank has become because of the 302 bug. Any reliance on historical data would make it a joke, with the known manipulation of the serps via 302 redirects for at least 21 months by my count. Compar is right. PR has not been a reliable resource for some time; and if you had seen the evolution of how Google handled the 302 bug, it would be obvious. I cannot hold any other theory than this is the fix for the 302 redirect bug, given the events of this week. Before they can move forward, they must fix the problems that have plagued it for some time. This is not a move toward TrustRank. As for the 'death of PR' theory, Google would probably make an announcement, and not simply leave everything in place (subdomains, auto-query interfaces, the PageRank indicator on the bar) while removing it. It would be a poor move business-wise, for bandwidth expenses if nothing else. Display of PR could easily be taken out of the Google directory listings if that were the case. But they are still there. If you can accept even a small part of the above, such as Google getting replaced in the serps by another site (there are screenshots) they cannot show PR right now. They certainly now know it is not accurate. Serp positions and PR have been stolen from Google itself. Google knows it has attributed PageRank wrongly, and that it is misleading. If they can or have fixed the bug, it will come back. It may eventually lead to a switch over to TrustRank, but they must build it on a solid foundation in order for it to have any value.
The lack of PR we're seeing over the weekend is more than likely a bug in the system, and due to the holiday weekend they're likely going to get back to it Tuesday. They just released a new version of the toolbar not too long ago. Why would they release a new version of the toolbar, and then all of the sudden remove one of the biggest features in it? Seems pretty strange to me.
Boy a guy takes an hour or two off around here and 4 pages transpire like nothing! We'll call a truce on the validity of PR in purchases and get back to the matters at hand... Thanks for the welcome G Tech - can't say that I have formally introduced myself yet. Initially stopped in to say hi to Anthony awhile back, and today just got wrapped up in things here in the "It's the End of PR" thread. Will make a point of it. Couldn't agree with you more more Anthony... if you look at many of the posts here it's sort of reminiscent of a junky without his fix ain't it? (o;? Couldn't agree with you more longcall, it's an opportune time, half the US is at the lake someplace getting rained on, thus considerably fewer complaints to handle, less traffic on the system overall, to boot. Take it down over the weekend make changes and be back by Tuesday.
You should have seen the first 150 or so posts... pure lightning. In fact, if many people would read them, it would probably be a much smaller thread. Alot of rehashing.
Sorry about that Design Agent... I was bouncing back and forth between two open windows trying to catch up with 4 pages that transpired in the last few hours, and apparently got lost there! My sincere apologies and thanks for the welcome... I have now formally introduced myself!
No worries at all I get lost all day long, even now.. wait til you see Minnie, ST, Mella, AC + yfs on the same thread.. I dont bother posting, my comments are out of date faster than you can say 'not again'
I've sort of noticed that myself NetMidWest, seems to be a great deal of introducing the same ideas repeatedly. I missed the first 150 of so posts, was invited to view the thread within a couple of hours of the PR Tool going down and I think we were already crowding 20 pages by the time I caught up! So yeah... I know exactly what you're talking about there!!
Yeah Design Agent yfs1 and mella paid us a visit at the BoG; it was sort of like being stuffed in a barrel and rolled down a hill... A guy didn't know which way to turn!!
Your posts have been insightful, Rocky. I can see you will add something to this community. Have a look at this thread, it got moved, but it seems to be related: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=17221
It's accross the board and has been discussed all over the place. It may be the end of pagerank (publicly), it could be a minor glitch, it could be a test, it could be the beginning of migration to Trustrank. Nobody knows - it's all speculation. It happened yesterday for the first time, I believe.
for me too.... past two days...i am facing this issue. I guess google is going to stop showing PR. Lets wait and see....
Thanks NetMidWest! As stated in my intro, I know just enough to be dangerous, and when in doubt I simply try to apply common sense. It's amazing how often that works...
I hope google does not mess up with PR, If it is the end of PR, I guess PR optimization is gone, only SERP will remain?
Only serps? Serps really is the ONLY thing anyway (well serps = traffic = revenue). Pr is not going to pay your bills anyway.