Bloggers have learned to live and die for their Google PageRanks, but yet, no one understands them completely.  And as of today, they got even more mysterious.

Google instituted PageRanks in 1998 as a way to see how many sites linked to any given site, and assign them a level of importance in search results.  While linking is a part of the calculation, there are also other factors that determine Page Rank.

No one is 100% sure why, but starting today, some formerly high ranked blogs took major hits to their PRs.  Since it is all graded on a scale of 10, most blogs are happy in the 5 - 7 range, and this helps them with their advertising.  Some bloggers found their ranks had dropped as much from a 7 to a 4.

The suspected culprit is “paid links”.  As the name implies these are links that other sites have paid for on higher ranked blogs to improve their own rankings.  It had been rumored for quite some time that Google was going to start frowning on this, and people had removed them in most cases just to be safe.  That removal seems to have had no affect on being penalized though.

In the case linked earlier, ProBlogger.net, had removed their links, and still saw a significant drop in their rank.  The big mystery was their sister blog, Digital Photography School, which has never sold paid links, also saw a drop of PR 6 to a PR 4.  So how did this happen, and more importantly, why?

It also seems that the biggest blogs were the hardest hit in the update.  The Blogsmith family of blogs, owned by AOL, saw Engadget, the #1 blog on Technorati, drop from PR 7 to PR 5.  Some of their sister blogs dropped from PR 6 to PR 4 (Autoblog) and from PR 5 to PR 4 (Download Squad). 

Something in the Google algorithms has changed, there is no doubt about that, but as Google has never been transparent about the formula, it is doubtful we’ll ever know for sure.  The blogosphere is buzzing about this as no one has mentioned seeing an increase in their rank, but only decreases have been discussed so far.

Speculation is sure to run rampant on this for days, if not weeks, to come.

Related:

Google PageRank gets updated again, adding to the mystery

Mysterious Skype charges pop up in PayPal accounts

Cool optical illusions

PayPal’s “you can’t get there from here” customer service

US District Court judge dismisses suit attacking Google’s search rankings

Entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 10:56 pm under Google.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
Stumble It!