Little green pixels gone after Google’s latest PR update.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
It seems that Google updated the Page Rank of websites and blogs the past few days. Guess what? ReapMoneyOnline has lost all the little green pixels. 
We spent some time with the Google group on page ranking to find out if RMO has been penalized since we always thought that a blog with unique content and more than 2,000 inbound links will warrant at least a PR1. Hey, a defunct blogspot blog of ours only has 35 inbounds and it managed to keep its PR2.
Here’s what we found out about a sudden loss in PR:
1. There maybe fewer links coming to ReapMoneyOnline.
Hmnn, RMO currently has 2,000 backlinks. Even a fourth of those must count for something.
2. The links coming to RMO are scoring a lower value than they did previously.
This is possible but we can’t possibly check 2,000 links. We did try one and that blog’s PR has been reduced from 4 to 3 (RMO is in the blogroll).
3. Google’s approach to PR has changed and things are displayed differently.
Now, is this possible? Are there indications that Google has changed rules mid-game? The Google webmasters guidelines seems to be their old self.
There were also “theories” of what could possibly have changed. Such as:
- Google has decided to devalue non-independent 3rd party votes. Specifically, links coming from directories, comments, and completely unrelated blog rolls.
- Spam links can occur within a site. Like our tags linking to the tag page. This a little blurry for us too and we have to do more digging on it as the tags do link to the tag page in most WordPress themes.
- The usual duplicate content. A note, however: Jill Whalen contends Google does not reduce PR for duplicate contents. The Search Engine Page Results (SERP) can be affected but not the PR. And YES, we’re careful RMO don’t have any duplicate content within the blog but it’s been scraped a number of times.
The good new is we got reassured that Page Rank does not equate to Page Ranking in the SERPs. We did a brief search of the most common keywords that gave us hits from Google and the articles were still where they were. Oh well, we surely would love to have those little green pixels back — they’re like a badge and advertisers and visitors do like them — but we can’t put more time into this PR thingy as we have other projects to do.
We just hope our sponsors from Project Wonderful who has kept RMO hosted and running will turn a blind eye to it as well. BTW, congratulations for those who attained a higher PR during the last update and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GOOGLE.
Did anybody else got slapped? Care to share your observations?
No. 1 — September 28th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Me too. I think I will take the Page Rank thing off my Google Toolbar and forget about it, it takes the joy out of blogging anyway.
No. 2 — September 28th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Hey, old friend.
Well, that’s a real pick me up. You’re always here when RMO is down. We’ve seen that CaribooPonderer has taken the roller coaster too. This page rank thingy is very confusing.
BTW, can you allow comments from visitors other than those on Blogger and those with OpenIDs in CaribooPonderer?
We have to check commentluv too cause it’s not working on your comment.
No. 3 — September 28th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
So there’s a new PR update. My blog is still stuck at PR3, and I noticed some of my newer blogs got one or 2 green little pixels as you described ‘em. I know how it feels like losing PR – LOL, way back first week of Sept for 3 days my PR3 were gone, but then I thought, Oh well, will just forget that PR thing.
bloggistas last blog post..Chinafied: Feeding The World – with Poison
No. 4 — September 28th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Well, that’s welcome news.
It does get more difficult from 3 and easier to lose it as well.
No. 5 — September 28th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Yepp – my main page jumped for 1 day to a 5 (for whatever reason) and stayed on two where it has been, I think.
My main blog went into nothingness and my Artist blog dropped from 3 to 2.
Oh well, they’ll recover.
I registered less searches coming in from google since two or three weeks.
So, something must have changed, a while back.
No. 6 — September 28th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
@ Nicole
We’re sorry you got dumped too. So it’s not only about web development and make money online sites. The plot thickens. Maybe this is only a temporary setback.
Thanks for dropping by.
No. 7 — September 28th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Two of the blogs that I forsake got ranked in this latest Google PR update. One got PR3 and the other PR2. My main blog is stuck at PR0.
Pastilans last blog post..My Top Five Sports Hightlight at SportsVids
No. 8 — September 29th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Answering your query about comments I think anyone can leave one but currently not anonymous though as I was having some idiot leaving long hate messages anonymously but I could take that prohibition off as I like everyone to be able to leave a comment. Comment luv may not recognize my domain name probably will work with the blogspot added. I seem to be having a problem with that. I have put this comment as from blogspot to see if it works.
Vic Graces last blog post..Been away for a couple of days
No. 9 — September 30th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
@ Pastilan
Same story here.
Ohh, we were researching page rank articles and we came to a WordPress blog which has an eloquent post on ranking. The author has graciously thrown in a link to a source at the bottom and we followed it too. Only to find out the sources was the indeed the original article, copied word for word.
The kicker? The WordPress.com blog article has a PR3 (the actual post) while the original post is unranked.
Crazy, isn’t it? Duplicate content and the scraper got a higher PR.
@ Vic Grace
Wow, we thought such behavior are for kids only. We are under the impression that CaribooPonderer’s readership are already beyond such childish acts. We can always get an OpenID.
Yes, we thought it was the redirect since the plugin looked okay. That’s another learning experience for us. Thanks.
No. 10 — October 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I gotta say that using the PR toolbar is helpful but it always distracts me from really worrying about content. Of course PR and link building is important but let’s remember content is king so if you focus on that you are bound to get good results after some time – keep plugging…..
Nates last blog post..Car Rim Sizes and Materials
No. 11 — October 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
That’s nice. Thanks for the kind words.
No. 12 — October 30th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Content will always be the biggest factor. With google constantly changing its algorithm, sites with sub par content will lose any good PR it may have gained from SEO tactics. As long as the content is, updated frequently and relevant your PR will take care of itself in time.
No. 13 — November 1st, 2008 at 9:13 pm
We sure does hope so.
Thanks.
No. 14 — December 11th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Google and Google’s Policy suck. I have almost 10 blogs, 9 of them have lost those green bars and one gained. Nice improvement, huh!
Leonardo Medinas last blog post..Pousada Natalli – Cabo Frio / RJ – Brasil
No. 15 — January 25th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I think it is not just about links and backlinks but content as well. I haven’t lost any links or don’t have any broken but my blog have lost PR by 1. Only factor which was involved, I couldn’t add unique content or any content at all.
Ekdals last blog post..Salsa Dancing Video
No. 16 — March 7th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I though PR and SERPS run side by side, that was just an exception. I think PR has nothing to do with SERPS as I can see many sites having low PR and very good position in Google. I am focusing on Anchor text in links only.