Thanks. I'll try and make my theory interesting. 1. Despite the fact that Toolbar PR has been very slow to upgrade for a year or so, and despite the "evidence" that would seem to indicate that all links may not be equal any more when it comes to PR calculation, I don't believe that Google can or will just summarily suspend or abandon PR. 2. Many thing evidenced by the tremendous inconsistency of their results over the past year or so indicate that Google has been struggling, if not out right broken. I'm sure you have seem my "broken" arguments elsewhere. I have no reason to change this argument today. In fact this weekend just provides further evidence in my opinion. Remember McDar's assessment. Google is "perfucked". 3. This being the holiday weekend Internet traffic will be, or is, down. If they are going to do a massive correction or reassessment of their entire database it will surely take several days of computing time, even with their vast resources. So this weekend would be a ideal time to do it. 4. They are now a public company, so the honesty and forthrightness that may have existed in the past will have changed. They cannot potentially damage all their shareholders by publicly announcing that they have been essentially broken for more than a year now. Hence if they are going to do a correction they will have to try and do it in secret. Therefore it is my belief that we will see Toolbar PR restored shortly -- I voted for May 31 in the poll. Hopefully this will bring some consistency and sense to the SERPs and ranking of many relevant valuable web sites that have disappeared during the last year or more. Google has been broken for a long time. Hopefully they are fixing it this weekend.
Don't say I didn't warn you, billion! Google isn't broken, compar... it's not a bug, it's a feature...
I hope that some of you are giving this asshole some negative reputation points. Let's see if we can bring him back to one green box.
Ahhh... a declaration of war, grumpar? It may shock you to learn that I don't live or die by little green squares.
Come on guys, why go back and fourth on this??? The other day in another thread you guys were exchanging smiles and all. Now in an effort to entertain the youngsters you go back to flaming each other PS: Yes Compar has been on the warpath and attacked me yesterday, but I got him back fair and square and it is overwith. You both can do the same and move on.....
grumpar is just upset because he started by slamming with a "don't mess up my thread" post and then had a tantrum when I responded...
3. Your point about the traffic being low over this weekend makes sense to me, but why wouldn't they just freeze TBPR at current levels untill the update or fix was in place and then just reactivate it. Hell, we wouldn't even know the difference, just think it's another pr update if any PRs changed. 4. Ok, but listening to the questions from the floor at the shareholder's meeting, doesn't sound to me like too many people who own shares really understand their business. I was waiting for a question about their auto links and for a shareholder to slam them about it. IMO the vast majority of shareholders wouldn't even have a blog, let alone a website, let alone even know what a PageRank update was.
3. Good question. I don't have an answer other than even that would require computer resources would it not? 4. It's not the individual shareholders that are involved I don't believe. It is the press and the potential Public Realtions black eye that would affect the stock prices.
Personally, I would love to see the PR bar stay grey. There are too many people that act as if PR is the ultimate measure of a successful site. In the words of John Goodman in The Big Lebowski: "FU##ING AMATEURS!" Now, if they would just get rid of Adsense too...
Dominic For now, it is only the opinions of the analysts at Thinkequity, Jeffries, and CIBC World Markets that really matter (being the firms of the top three rated analysts on GOOG), because it is not the majority view, by number of opinions held, or even the Press, but the most influential opinion-formers that sway huge GOOG investors like Fidelity, CM&R, Legg Mason, etc. Those folks may be amused at the webmasters being all of a tizzy over something (PR visibility) ultimately utterly inconsequential to GOOG's acceptance, market share of Searches, and revenues. On the other hand, if they judge the now you see it, now you don't, mystery of PR as material, perhaps symtomatic of less than perfect planning, etc., no doubt they will be on their firms' squawboxes about it on Tuesday morning. I know I am the only one; but nonetheless to me it will be quite interesting to see how GOOG trades in Europe tomorrow. One big yawn?
People who trade shares and people who make money online have a lot in common... they deal with a lot of change and a lot of factors out of their control.
I do both, trading is how I make a living, making money online started out as a hobby to fill the void in the day between trades......looking at the chart of GOOG for Friday it was business as usual, in fact a very bullish day, it started out up and kept going closing at a record high...266 up 6.80, volume was average. The reason I mention this is that there is nothing to indicate Google was about to introduce any significant changes. If they were there would be signs of nervousness partically in the volume. The monthly and weekly volume are both steady, it just looks like business as usual. Tomorrow when GOOG opens will be very interesting.......I think it will open down on higher volume because of the PR issue, late morning early afternoon will really tell the story though as questions start to be asked. If they have changed or done away with PR it would be viewed as a significant change and would have to be reported to the stock exchange.
Interesting viewpoint Cyclops. Isn't the market closed tomorrow? Mem Day? Could it be that google took advantage of the three day break to work on something that might spook investors? Maybe by Tuesday they will have it back up and working again, with no ill effect to the stock nor explanations required.
Ha, yep Didn't notice your location. Still, wouldn't it still be the day after tomorrow for you as well..... Wednesday your time? Gets a bit confusing //not to get sidetracked
I voted "never". I think Google has figured that PR is not any profitable force in their entity, but shady and questionable webmasters have abused the PR and have made it profitable by their own means. Selling PR is against Google terms but many newcomers and even veteran webmasters do not know this because of the outright exploitation of the PR. In Google minds...what good does revealing a site PR provide (for Google personally), especially now that they have gained a good deal of the toolbar market share. I doubt removing the PR will affect investors in any way because as mentioned the PR is not a profitable service for Google it was only meant to be informational. Removing the PR will mostly affect webmasters especially those who use the PR as an incentive to sell advertising or sell the site. They will now have no where to turn to claim that their site is popular and a great site. It will take web advertising on a new spin and back to its roots. Of course, I could be completely wrong (wouldn't be the first). Google could have a completely different vision and bring a new more sophisticated PR tool with new rules that makes everybody happy. We'll see.