If you haven’t already heard, on Friday, April 22, 2005 Google began its toolbar Page Rank update, for real. Whether it was an early April Fool’s Day joke or a burp, glitch or hitch in the update, reports were on March 25, 2005 that Google was updating the toolbar PR and the update did not complete. This brings to mind the question of whether or not Google is on a quarterly PR toolbar update schedule as they have been for the past year or if the schedule is more random now? Or, did Google simply blow their scheduled update by six weeks?
As usual, Google isn’t telling since they maintain that the toolbar PR is for “entertainment purposes only.” While Google is correct in its claim, the faulty perception of many in the community is quite the opposite. Many Webmasters will not trade links on pages that have a least a certain Page Rank. When a website’s PR goes up a notch, some will take this as justification to charge more for text link advertisements.
Those with a high PR may gloat will others with a lower PR may feel frustrated and seek to do “whatever it takes” to increase their website’s PR. Unfortunately, Page Rank has been a great distraction from keeping one’s eye on the ball. Page Rank is not the game or the goal. The goal is more traffic, more sales, more profits. Some lose sight of this in their quest for high PR. When you take a look at the SERP’s you’ll notice that they are not arranged in Page Rank order.
Since the SERP’s are not arranged in Page Rank order, then why spend time developing PR instead of developing your website in a way that will garner higher rankings and more traffic? This may be another reason that Google was late with the Page Rank update, because PR just isn’t that important. Google has maintained this all along. We just need to get the word out so that more people will listen.
