Why Google PageRank is worthless and just another Certificate for Decoration

April 3, 2010 - Last Modified: February 14, 2013 by Hesham Zebida

This is is out of my expectations, Google PageRank update is kind of crazy this time, almost all the old domains and blog remain the same, except a few of those I was checking, and the new domains jumped to PR 3 and 4, so… I am sure there is one factor is messing, or link building is not a real strong factor of increasing the PageRank. You will be amazed of my PageRank results.

Now, and after I was believing in Google PageRank, as I always think I should believe of what advertisers believe, because simply they are the ones who paying my expensive at the moment, but now I will have to change my mind about PR, yes I need a nice number and certificate for decoration only!

I started also not to believe the importance of other rankings, it’s all messed up and not reflecting the real results of hard work, and I am going to show!

My expectations for FamousBloggers.net is to get a pr of 4 or 5, but what happened is that it’s rank remains as it was, it’s still 3 with no changes for the home page, but so many internal pages got pr of 2 and 3 which is cool!

The really crazy thing happened, and I will tel you why it’s crazy is that my personal blog went from 1 to 3, I have published 3 or 4 posts since the last 6 months, and I have no idea why Google decided PR of 3 for it.

Let me tell you something more crazy about Google PR

Probably you know MMO social network and bookmark site, that was PR 0 as it’s still new, that 3 months old site got a PR of 4, WOW!

Another crazy thing about Google PageRank

I still don’t believe that my one month old designs social bookmark site DesignGizer.com got a PR or 4, and my 2 weeks old new design blog DesignGizer.net that no body knows about it and never visited it before went to PR2 🙂 Thank you Google!

So, in a way or another, I think I have sacrificed FamousBloggers.net Rank, and give it to other blogs, I used to believe of Google Page Rank, but not this time, I don’t want to say that, but Google PR is bulls**t.

About Hesham Zebida

Follow @hishaman

I create websites with WordPress, and I develop Schema Plugins to help SEOs. I am a social network lover. I am also the night creature who works hard to keep this project up. Owner and founder of the Famous Blog.

{ 63 Responses }

Kathy says:

If you are building a site for organic ranking, then PR really doesn't matter a whole lot. The PR of the pages that link back to you does matter, but the PR of your website itself does not. It is simply a numerical representation of how well linked to any given page is compared to other pages on the internet. I like to think of PR as if it were pipes flowing link juice through them. A PR1 page is a 1" pipe. A PR2 page is a 2 inch pipe and so on.
Eseotips says:

Your guest posts helped your blog! that’s what I think.
- Hesham says:
  
  It's not guest posts, anyways... If you use your real name I could put more effort in my reply to you ;)
Jason Jumat says:

I think one of the factors which we all should take into account to, is that Google greatly changes the way in how they rank constantly - now even more than ever. This makes us confused about how exactly to rank. I guess one should just produce outstandingly high quality content so 1000's of sites can link to it and so we just must rank high enough?
Jason Jumat says:

I don't think Pagerank is all that worthless. The most what it does is give an idea of how strong you are valued and this should give you an idea of how you will be able to compete with other sites. The way in how Google apply it's Pagerank algorithm constantly changes and we as bloggers don't exactly know how Google ranks our webpages (or website for that matter). All that is important though is to concentrate on keywords with anchored text for the keywords we would like to rank for. Other than there's really nothing fancy about this concept.
Andy says:

It does seem to get crazier and crazier each time they update. .-= NEW from Andy @Directory Submission´s last blog ..Directory Submission =-.
Bogdan says:

I think those that are anxious for getting a higher PR are those that earn a living from their websites. When advertising on a blog/site people usually look first at its page rank...
Tinh says:

I am surprised with this at least for your blog. I hoped you could get PR5. My friend who has a blog of just 3 weeks but got PR4 this time. It was a shocking news to me and Google is something that I do not want to say about this time. Hope you can get what you deserved for in the next time .-= Tinh´s last blog ..Domain & Hosting Discount for April Updated =-.
Mikes says:

Google might slap back hesham. After all it's the KING! .-= Mikes´s last blog ..Your Daily Word's Page Rank is now 4/10 =-.
Chris Guthrie says:

Page Rank is pointless unless you sell links otherwise who else cares to know the number? .-= Chris Guthrie@Make Money on the Internet´s last blog ..Proliferation of Misinformation =-.
- Tinh says:
  
  Agree! Bloggers who are selling paid links need PR very much .-= Tinh´s last blog ..Domain & Hosting Discount for April Updated =-.
Olusegun says:

Whao. Maybe the Google Algorithm for PR is going nuts. I'm doing a research on PR and what parameters exactly Google uses to do their ranking. .-= Olusegun´s last blog ..Backlinks – Get Them =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Well.. Thais is a lot of work, probably you will take 10 years ;) looking forward to read about your research..
  - Olusegun says:
    
    LOL. Are you serious?! Hmm, maybe i need a rethink if you are serious Hesham! .-= Olusegun´s last blog ..THE MOST POWERFUL YOU =-.
    - Hesham says:
      
      Nahh.. just kidding.. but I know that no one knows about all the factors!
Andrew says:

One thing for sure that Google Page Rank does do...get people talking about it! Andrew .-= Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..How to Get All the Free Traffic You Want =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  A lot of discussions, and most of it is not that much useful.. but maybe advertisers will change their minds about it in the coming 10 years ;)
Ajinkya says:

My blog is now page rank 4 and i am very very happy with that :D But i dont agree that google page rank is worthless cause unlike buying selling text ads or adverts , the SEO is better as more the pag erank more is SERP , yeahh there are many other factors but this factor should not be missed out :P .-= Ajinkya´s last blog ..QwertyWEB gets Page Rank 4 =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Yeah... I know how it feels :) enjoy
Chadrack says:

This all bear down to one thing, what is your blog's purpose? If you aim to build blogs and get advisers to pay for ads or you want to build your blogs and then sell them off, you definitely need to unearth what is Google's criteria for page rank. But if you just want to blog and want people like us come around and appreciate how good your blog is, then forget about page rank. Seriously! So think about it again. Is Google PageRank worthless and some thing you should get for decoration only? Why don't you take a look at famousblogger again. It is a great blog. Great design, and the traffic? Torrential! Sure that's why you looked forward with great expectations. But why allow the results deflate your balloon? It can still fly high. Only determine what needs plugging and then the sky is the limit! .-= Chadrack@Home Business Marketing´s last blog ..How To Monetize Your Free Report! =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Thank you Chadrack for giving your time to put this comment! I think I will forget about PR or I will just don't take it seriously, there is more important things to consider when thinking of a blog like community activity and the traffic of the blog! I found already a few things that maybe affecting the blog, so I will be looking into it and try to fix it! Thanks again
tricks tips says:

My blog updated to PR-1 but i have 65+ link from Google... Many blogs having less than this but they have PR-3 or even4....??? I'm not blamming Google for this... But the thing is, Google PR is not only based on Backlinks...it includes many factors for it.. In my views Google has 100+ factor to calculate the PR what do u say Hesham ?? .-= tricks tips´s last blog ..Winner of Pagerank Contest =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Exactly, and the compiling these factors all together gives the final PageRank, anyways there is always something will be missing and we don't know what is it ;)
Latief says:

Page Rank is not too important anymore, I heard about it before but advertiser still use PR :D that's our problem. Its always easy to get PR for 2 or 3 but I never got 4 or more. Using blogger I've PR 2 on the first 3 months and now got PR 3 for not 3 months yet blog with my self hosted own domain. The crazy thing is one of my blog with no update about one year still have PR 2! lol! I think PR is not to important anymore and we must change our opinion about PR and I heard Google will change PR with other name ;) .-= Latief@AnotherBlogger´s last blog ..Facebook Fan Page Report =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  This is true Latief, I didn't know that Google will change the name of PR.. interesting ;)
Typhoon says:

Yeah man, I agree to you on that..Pagerank is really of no sense and Google have told it dozen of times..But it is difficult for humans to believe that easily (but I've already believed it). We as a blogger, still must take a look at making the pagerank better because many advertisers haven't really forgotten the pagerank and its related myths. As our blog needs advertisers in order to afford expenses(if you are not having any other income sources online), therefore, we must try to have an healthy pagerank will give the advertiser a little trust on the blog. .-= Typhoon´s last blog ..“I’m to busy to post to my blog!” – Your survival guide =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Humans = advertisers :) I hope they can realize what you are saying, maybe one day they will understand! Welcome back to your blog buddy and congratulations again for the move to the new server!
Josh Kohlbach says:

I think I agree here - PR doesn't mean as much as it used to. Eg, my site as punished for some weird redirections that it had and went from a PR2 to a PR0. My traffic has more than doubled since then and Google haven't reanalysed my site for over 5 months. On one hands it's ridiculous, on the other it really highlights that it's an outdated metric. .-= Josh Kohlbach´s last blog ..StumbleUpon: My Stumble Your Own Stuff Experiment =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Some times I think that Google guys did some mistake! (just a thought)
Dragon Blogger says:

How do you check the pagerank of all sub pages on your site? I thought WebMaster tools used to do this and doesn't anymore. Also, out of all 6 blogs I either own or administrate, every single one stayed the same pagerank in this last update. PageRank is meaningless for traffic, but unfortunately many advertisers pay much higher premiums for PR4 and higher blogs and you can sell backlinks for 5x as much with a PR5 than you can with a PR2. .-= Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..Dragon Blogger Review of Surrogates =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  I check the PR on my toolbar PR checker, it gives the individual PR of each page while browsing. Yeah! this is true, I was expecting this blog PageRank to increase, but now I have to turn to my other sites which got PR4 (I have no idea why!) and try to drive more traffic! I am not so surprised now that your blogs didn't change because this update is crazy!
WebTechWise - for bloggers and web developers says:

Hesham, even though I was excited to with this PR update, I agree with you that PR should not be considered as a goal to persue on its own. PR is merely a measurement that in many aspects is unreliable and don't reflect two things that are much more important in my opinion: Your great content and your passion for it. Your relationship with other people in your blog and in their blogs (and also outside). As you say, PR really shouldn't be taken too seriously, because in the end of the day there are much more important factors to a succesful blog. and besides, only Google knows how they calculate it exactly. .-= WebTechWise - for bloggers and web developers´s last blog ..Google PR Update is Finally Here =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  I can add more than you did, and it's all true.. and believe me Google people don't know anything about Google.. I can see it on Matt Cutts's eyes lol Now, it's your chance to start driving traffic to your site, and try to make something out of it ;)
  - Omer Greenwald says:
    
    :-) .-= Omer Greenwald@webtechwise - for bloggers and web developers´s last blog ..Google PR Update is Finally Here =-.
Alison Moore Smith says:

Have to agree. I have blogs with PR 5, 4, 3, 2, and 0. The ranks - and rank changes- don't really corralate to content. .-= Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..31DBBB: Day #7 Write a Link Post =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Have you notice that PageRank of the internal pages some times higher than the main page? I have one page here with PR 4 .. only one I guess lol
  - Alison Moore Smith says:
    
    Honestly, since I think so little of PR, I rarely check interior pages. Just don't care that much. :) .-= Alison Moore Smith@Easy Blog Setup´s last blog ..31DBBB: Day #7 Write a Link Post =-.
    - Hesham says:
      
      Yeah!.. you don't pay too much attention to the PageRank then, I understand... I don't check my internal pages as well, because I don't have to, the FirFox PageRank toolbar add-one is telling me while I am browsing my blog!
Ileane says:

The page rank for my Blogger blog has sunk to the bottom of the scale, so if I were a believer in page rank I might go somewhere and cry. Your blogs are great and MMOSocialNetwork is bound for success. Cheers! .-= Ileane@Blogging´s last blog ..Top 10 Ways To Improve My Blogspot Blog =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  At least I have 2 sites with pr 4 now :) but it's a long way to go... I need traffic!
DiTesco says:

Yeah! I have a long time ago abandoned the craziness of wanting to know what PR I would be getting. I had 3 then went down to zero and now it appears I am at 2. This has not slowed down my rankings on the SERPs which actually improved. Anyway, I can see your disappointment as like me you are monetizing your site and having that PR is important for advertisers. It is unfortunately a metric that they still widely use. Anyway, good to hear that your other sites like MMO went to 4. that is a good achievement. .-= DiTesco´s last blog ..Google AdSense Introduces WingDings =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Now it's time to work on other sites more to drive as much traffic as possible, it's a good chance now and probably we can monetize them in a better way!
Patrick Toerner says:

Yeah the PR update is whack. I have a site that isn't even indexed by Google and has no backlinks jump to PR 2. And my main site, is still PR N/A and it has close to 700 links. It is really about where you are in the serps, not your PR. PR is just a bragging point. .-= Patrick Toerner @Young Entrepreneur´s last blog ..10 More Wordpress Plugins I Can’t Live Without =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Yeah Patrick, I don't know how this happened, the whole concept of PR is not like is used to be before!
Mars Dorian says:

to be honest, I never care about any form of ranking. My goal is to build genuine relationships and a great community. My focus is always on humans first ! .-= Mars Dorian´s last blog ..7 ways to Blog Yourself to Branding Heaven =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  This is great Tips Mars, I know you are not concentrating on the PR thing! Community is the best
lawmacs says:

We seen it before and remember this post i have written long ago forget Google page rank if google can tweak its page rank formula about 450 times in one year that answers the question. One thing i learnt long ago about Page Rank is that when you worked too hard at it you usually loose it best to follow the simple technique "Cocentrate on the users experience and the rest will follow. I think the next update you will move up to pr5 keep doing what you are doing. Guys Remember PR is just for advertisers. .-= lawmacs´s last blog ..Round up From The Web =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  lol! yeah you are right... this reminds me with the educations system in my country.. when they try to tweak it almost every year and hurt the students I will make it to the 5 latter... no rush at all now, I have my other online assets ;)
Gerald Weber says:

Here is another things that people tend to overlook quite a bit when it comes to page rank. Page rank does not = rankings. You can have a high page rank and still rank poorly for your keywords in SERPs. You need good anchor text in your back link profile in order for those link to help you rank well for specific keywords. .-= Gerald Weber´s last blog ..Blog Commenting Faux Pas, Red Flags, and Best Practices =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Thanks for the tip buddy, almost all of my backlinks has the same anchor text, anyways I admit I am confused still.. but there is enough time to learn ;) Thanks Gerald!
- Hesham says:
  
  By the way, I rank very high in the first a few days and then start to drop down to the end of first pages of search! Just wondering if you have any explanation for that?!
Onibalusi Bamidele says:

Hi, I was surprised to see famous bloggers left at pr3, I just don't believe that is possible, you have tons of quality links back to your site, I also see some twitter profiles get pr8. I think google pagerank this time around is Plain Rubbish. Some people said it is not complete yet. In case you still want an increase, you can try .edu, .gov or military sites, a military site made my site pagerank 2 and I think my guest posts made it pagerank 4. I think Google is partial for not adding pagerank to famous bloggers (to be sincere). Thanks. .-= Onibalusi Bamidele´s last blog ..Welcome – Young pre pro is live =-.
- Hesham says:
  
  Some internal pages got PR of 4.. and maybe there is 5 (I don't know)! The amazing thing is I have just started a new blog, 2 weeks back.. and it's PR2 and another one month old social bookmark site for designs got 4 ... this is crazy! But for FamousBloggers.net it won't hurt to stay on 3 if we have good traffic ;) I am sure that your guest posts helped a lot on that! I am still thinking how you will deal with the redirection you have made?!
  - Onibalusi Bamidele says:
    
    Pls, I ma sorry to ask, how did my guest posts help. Thanks. PS: concerning the pagerank, not to worry, I have already done something of such before. Also, Congratulations on your sites, you now have lots of valuable assets online now, I will also begin creating several domain names, develop them and sell them: what a good idea (my younger brother gave it to me). Also, you will not believe that a website i developed for somebody and abandoned about a month ago also got pagerank 3. Thanks.
    - Hesham says:
      
      Ah! I like this "valuable assets" sounds cool :) Your guest posts helped your blog! that's what I think. I can believe anything these days .. I am open minded guy LOL!
      - Onibalusi Bamidele says:
        
        Yeah! you have valuable assests, in fact, so many. I am very certain my guest posts on your blog helped me. Thanks a lot. .-= Onibalusi Bamidele´s last blog ..Welcome – Young pre pro is live =-.

Why Google PageRank is worthless and just another Certificate for Decoration

Let me tell you something more crazy about Google PR

Another crazy thing about Google PageRank

About Hesham Zebida

Our Newsletter

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Let me tell you something more crazy about Google PR

Another crazy thing about Google PageRank

About Hesham Zebida

Reader Interactions

Related Posts

{ 63 Responses }

Our Newsletter