The Internet is a buzz today with Google PageRank downgrades. speculation on the reasons for the downgrade range from an attack on blog link farms, the end of PageRank, removing AdSense ads, it’s all John Chow’s fault, etc. You can see a list of new PageRank for well known blogs at DailyBlogTips.
The most popular reason given for the first batch of PR downgrade (I went from 6 to 5) was that those sites that got hit were selling links. However, that reasoning doesn’t seem to hold anymore because Problogger.net (from 6 to 4) and bunch of other blogs doesn’t sell links.
I would say the most likely reason for this change is Google is messing around with link resellers like Text Link Ads. By downgrading a large chunk of the blogs on the Internet, Google has made it that much harder for the link resellers to sell links.
My feeling on this is to not even worry about it too much. Keep an eye on your search traffic for the next week or two. If it’s still the same then the drop in PageRank is just a number drop and nothing more. However, if that is the case, then PageRank just became irrelevant.
In other news, my PageRank is going to 4 and I’ve passed 13,000 RSS readers for the first time. Take that Google! 
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John, looks like you cut the Google cord at the right time!
Lol he didn’t cut the Google chord, they cut him although John does preach not having all your eggs in any one basket.
I believe the poster was referring to John getting rid of adsense on his site.
Well I guess I am not going to put to much faith in them. I don’t sell text links but I guess that don’t matter much anyways. Just need more traffic period!
I dont know if you noticed john but you’re down to a pr 4 the same thing happened to problogger and the same thing happened to me. if it continues to go this way i think google is removing its page rank..
maybe the pagerank number won’t be a random number that anyone can trick…New blogs will have a real chance to beat the big names with accurate information
It’s a new era !! a google era
Everyone went to google because of microsoft .. Now you give all the power to google. Enought power to create a new word i’m googling pouahahhahahah
I heard that : this is only the phase 1 .. 2008 will be worst
so do your thing now later it will be too late 
Dude - You feeling okay?!?!?
Well it could be
But if we believed that those blogs got drop in their pagerank without a reason than we are eating the BS they have to tell us.
Read, Google is not penalizing ONLY those that sell links or buy links, Google is penalizing THOSE that try to TRICK their algorithm, and by PUBLIC ALLY asking for people to link to your site in a contest to win a price is what I would call tricking the system (apparently thats what Google thinks too). So if Darren wasn’t selling links he was clearly asking for backlinks and giving prizes in return, thats not what Google likes.
So a reason like “Did i got penalized because I removed AdSense” is not what makes much sense to me, isntead “Yeah, i got penalized because you guys linked to me cause I asked and was giving prices for linking, not because you liked my content on whatsoever”.
What I do like are people like John Chow and his lovely comment “better a PR5 than a PR0″ as I mentioned on my post in regard of this pagerank horning round. John was clean and did not made noise because he knew there is a reason (but he doesn’t care, hence why I keep reading his blog daily).
Congrats for 13,000 Milestone….It was expected though
Indeed - congrats a load of new subscribers!
Yeah you’ve beat shoemoney!
Looks like Google is just making the PageRank # a bit more accurate. Many of the sites that were knocked down are part of larger site networks that contributed to their high PRs. Other sites were all part of linking schemes such as the various link trains, and memes that go around the net.
I don’t think this change will affect text link sales at all.
It will affect price though because lots of people want to buy page rank, still.
Um you need to keep looking around. Lots of sites that were hit don’t fall into any of the categories you just listed.
They took down ProBlogger by two points as well. Something is definitely going on at the evil Googleplex.
I’m glad PR is pretty much irrelevant for 99% of what I do.
My PR didn’t change.
And I think, your PR is now 4 and not 5.
PageRank is just a number, i agree
Well no kidding!
PageRank has always been a number. It’s simply a snapshot of the “real” PageRank that Google uses in it’s calculations. However, by the time it updates, the snapshot is months old and thus no longer really tells you a whole lot.
When Google was a much smaller company without a monopoly, it could get away with things like this. But now Google is affecting not just small blogger, but big companies with reputable websites. And it’s hitting them where it hurts. In their pocketbooks.
Don’t be surprised if you see lawsuits about Google becoming a monopoly and abusing their position. It happened to Apple, Microsoft, and a number of other 600lb gorillas. History tells us that customers don’t like monopoly type companies throwing their weight around like this.
Kenneth
Even if Google gets hit with an antitrust case it will spring back. they all do. MS, At&t, all major corporations play the legal game and spring back as another monopoly. look at the telecom industry. they had to break up At&t. then all these little companies grew. and now look. At&t just buys it back. can’t stop goliath
The change in Page Rank is always interesting. I had Google basically remove me from the search results in April and they killed my traffic for over a month. Don’t know why. A lesson in removing a blog’s dependence from them. They are just so convenient though.
Wrong. The buzz today is all about Google’s F*ck up with adsense earnings and reports.
Wrong. The buzz today is all about Google’s F*ck up with adsense publishers earnings and reports.
Congrats for 13,000…! that’s awesome…
any word on new sites getting a pagerank for the first time?
So does this mean this is the end of text link ads? What are all the smaller sites who rely on that revenue going to do now?
I’m PR3 now! w00t!
Talk about irrelevant!
Tyler is PR 3 and my highly unimportant blog with lesse than 10 visits a day is PR 4.
PageRank is becoming a joke.
It’s definitely hit the joke stage. I’ve got sites that out PageRank A-list bloggers. Way to go Google!
still at 5, hope it will remain there
i’m still at a PR4.. nicccce
hi guys, I am new and my PR is 0 haha. So please enlighten me, whats d benefits of high PR ? you can sell links at higher price or you can attract more ads ? Thanks .
Crazy Crazy! I got hit by the update too, and wrote a post that has a theory that other people haven’t really come up with yet. Here it is:
http://courtneytuttle.com/2007/10/24/alternate-theory-for-google-pagerank-drops/
Would love to hear what you have to say if you have the time.
Court
[...] everyone is already talking about this. But I would have felt bad if I hadn’t officially welcomed the a-listers to the 4.0 club. But [...]
[...] Google PageRank Update and Its All Down [...]
I bet TLA are pissed!
I’m still at PR 3 and search traffic has gone up quite nicely the past few days. I’m working on a little post tomorrow about my theories on the drop and how the whole PR system can be fixed… I suspect a lot of it has to do with low quality links and viral marketing.
[...] you blame me? Because of that pagerank? Oh please… I’m not take all of your pagerank. Just a “little bit” of [...]
My new since April blogs still don’t have rank yet. My mini-sites that have been around for a few years are still at 3 or 4, no change there.
Last week my organic traffic got chopped in half from Google but stayed the same from Yahoo!, MSN search, msn live, etc. I reconfigured my pages, added some “noindex follow” and straight “nofollow” tags to many pages and many single links on those pages and the traffic bounced back bigger than before.
My PR hasn’t changed, I don’t run a typical blog however, I use wordpress as my current choice of cms mostly and replaced comments with a forum feature.
Hmm interesting..
I wish google would remove those pages that just have tons of google ads. Example all those pages that come up when you mistype a domain name.
[...] Google PageRank Update and It’s All Down, John Chow dot Com [...]
My firefox page rank addon is showing you at 0. My blog is still at 4. and my new blog is at 5.
The wrath of Google. John, dropping from 6 to 5 is that bad. Some sites were dropped from PR 7 to 3. Ouch.
Long live RSS and no need for Google?
Lost my PR7… but it’s not the end of the world, isn’t it?
Truly understand your feelings!
We are still waiting to be page ranked so that we too can fall from grace!
Is pagerank really that important anymore? It seems like the more Google messes with it, the less relevance people (advertisers) will be placing on it. Or at least that is what we hope!
Congrats on reaching 13K RSS readers. It will be interesting to see what happens after your contest ends…
I feel your pain we had a lot of sites drop rank but our sites with no advertising at all seemed to stay the same. Of course I am not saying that is the reason but it is food for thought.
Why is everyone rolling over for Google? Isn’t the Internet supposed to be the “great equalizer?” And ,why can’t Google be as “transparent” as the rest of us are supposed to be, instead of being so…covert? That would be in my ever-so-humble opinion, good business! The only reason for not giving an explanation for your actions is because you’re doing something evil. Otherwise, you would shout it from the rooftops. I had high hopes for the Internet but it would appear that the Internet like the government is owned and operated by the Corporate Fat Cats.
I’ve recently given up my day job to try to earn money from blogging. I’m only in the early stages and to me gaining a good PageRank is very important. It’s a bit worrying therefore to see how variable it is once you do gain it. Google certainly does have a lot of power over your life if you’re trying to make a living from this.
you don’t need pagerank to make money, just traffic.