Google Not Updating PageRank…Or Are They?

It’s pretty evident Google don’t care about PageRank anymore. Or do they? Our favorite stat just goes away?

“PageRank updates are what made this site popular!” I cry out in vain.

In this post I’ll cover 5 facts we should all know even if you started a blog yesterday, and why they lead me to think PageRank is being updating now more than ever behind those primary colored doors.

Five basic facts: covered

Much of the specific 1-2 year history, or rather aftermath, of PageRank is covered at SearchEngineJournal.com and SEORoundTable.com. Definitely check them out. Doing a bit of my own research with other tools, I was able to find 5 things I think any blogger should know.

(If this doesn’t answer the emails I’ve gotten lately, hit me back…)

1. Last Toolbar update: December 2013

Google last updated the Toolbar PageRank in February 4th, 2013, back when they were updating it roughly 3-4 times a year. They claimed updates were done for the year but a surprise accidental PageRank update came through in December 2013. This was awesome and the SEO world lit up in joy. But today, the ToolBar PageRank numbers you see (or check with any other public facing tool) are at least 1 year old. However how often does Google make a mistake? I’d bet this update was intentional, and the accident was it getting picked up by Toolbars worldwide.

2. The pipeline is broken

Google are not updating PageRank because the pipeline which pushes data from Google’s internal servers to Chrome and other browsers has broken. Google reports there is no team working on fixing this.

3. Google really, really want everyone to focus elsewhere

Google justifies the lack of effort put in fixing the PageRank Pipeline with two reasons which are 1. Google don’t think publishers need the latest data and 2. Google think publishers obsess to much over the data.

4. Matt Cutts sites IE10 and Chrome as his reasons

In videos Matt Cutts explains his own reasoning why over time the Google ToolBar PageRank might go away entirely and is getting less usage. As Cutts puts this is because “recent versions of Internet Explorer don’t really let you install toolbars as easily, and Chrome doesn’t have the toolbar.” The second part of this sentence is just plain false, or maybe Cutts meant to say something else.

5. 3rd popular product to suffer

This is the third publicly hailed Google product to fall in as many years, with Reader and Glass proceeding it.

So what’s really going on?

At the dinner table four nights ago I asked my Generation Y parents if they thought Google would fall someday, like all major empires do at some point, and they said yes. However I disagree.

Plainly put, I think Google’s reasons for not publicly updating PageRank are dead on with reason 2 above, in that Google wants us to focus on other things. It’s a huge misdirection effort to get SEOs and the 100s of thousands of new bloggers that enter the web each day to focus on other efforts, like writing foolproof, original content.

Behind those blue, red and yellow doors, Google is (I bet) updating PageRank more than ever. It’s the reason link networks still reign, the reason people continue to dump millions into paid links, and the reason I was able to rank in YouTube for “Start a blog” within a few months.

The search landscape is shifting now more than ever often times in a live environment.

What do you think is happening?

Is PageRank important to you? If you haven’t seen a single PageRank update on your site, what other metrics and strategies are you using to improve your blog’s reputation? Drop a comment and let me know, thanks!