Google Pagerank Update
Next Update
Nobody knows when the next Google Pagerank update will happen, but it is expected in June or July of 2013. The last one was 4 February 2013.
Last Updates
Google updates Toolbar Pagerank every 3 or so months:
- 4 February 2013 – Confirmation here.
- 7 November 2012
- 2 August 2012
- 2 May 2012
- 7 February 2012
- 7 November 2011
- 1st Week August 2011
- JULY 2011
- JUNE 2011
- JANUARY 2011
- April 2010
- Dec 31, 2009
- 30 October 2009
- 27/28 May 2009
- June 2009
- 1 / 2 April 2009
- 30-31 December 2008
- 27 September 2008
- 26 July 2008
- 29 April 2008
- 9 January 2008
- 26 October 2007
- 28 April 2007
Google says:
Webpages with a higher PageRank are more likely to appear at the top of Google search results.
…but that is NOT the whole story. I’ve seen sites go from anywhere from PR 0 to PR 7 in one update and no difference in the number of visitors the site received.
In 2013 it’s a lot more risky to manipulate Google Pagerank, so the mantra should not be to “increase your Pagerank” but rather “get quality sites to link to you” which will have the same effect. In 2013, it’s MUCH MUCH HARDER to manipulate Pagerank so it’s probably better to focus on just getting links from reputable sites.
Toolbar Pagerank is a ‘simplification of REAL PAGERANK – which is a complex algorithm – and ONE of the ways Google works under-the-hood. On it’s own – Pagerank is NOT the be and end all of ranking high in Google.
Likewise – just because a page has a Toolbar grey in the toolbar does not mean a page has no real pagerank – it can mean that of course, but it can mean other things.
A page probably accrues real Pagerank within hours – perhaps instantly in 2013 – and Toolbar Pagerank updates every 3 or so months. The most common reason for a drop in Toolbar Pagerank is simply your website is receiving less Pagerank via the links it has pointing to it from other sites. Pagerank can also go down as the result of a penalty. If you have been penalised there may be a notice in Google Webmaster Tools.
Toolbar PR has little effect on it’s own on the amount of visitors Google will send you. A reduction in real PR however could see less pages on your site being indexed, or your site crawled less often, or less deep. Think of Google Toolbar PR as ‘an indication of the PR of what your site might have been a couple of weeks ago.
To get a higher Pagerank, you simply need to get a lot of other pages with PR to link to you.
Pagerank flows, and so can be manipulated, funnelled, blocked (with NoFollow) and screwed up. It is also possible for an internal page to have a higher PR than the home page.
Google Pagerank is ‘donated’ to other pages and is shared by the number of outgoing links on the pages. In theory, you may get more Google Pagerank benefit from a Google Pagerank 3 page with only two outbound links than a Google Page Rank 5 page with hundreds of outbound links. As I have said I’ve also experienced sites go from anywhere from PR 0 to PR 7 in one update although in 2013 it’s MUCH MUCH HARDER to manipulate Pagerank.
Google Pagerank 2013 is a recursive algorithm, with decay factored in, and probably pretty far removed from the original Google Pagerank paper created by Larry Page who it’s actually named after.
Pagerank may be about whether you are in Google’s main index, or not in, and probably, a measure to gauge how often or how deep you can expect Googlebot to crawl your pages. It’s as simple as that from my observations. A high PR won’t rank above a low PR page just on Toolbar PR. In theory the good thing about a lot of Pagerank, is you can get a lot more pages into Google – that’s it. It does not improve rank – it only allows a page to rank, and perhaps MORE pages to rank.
Is Google Pagerank pointless? Certainly not – and there are indications that Google uses Pagerank even today to choose a reputable source for a piece of duplicate content found on multiple sites, for instance. Sites with no Pagerank at all can often be signs of ‘dead’ spammy sites, too, which is useful when investigating backlinks to a website.