Google PageRank is one tool that many webmasters use to measure the performance of their web pages. On a scale of 0 to 10, search engine leader Google ranks nearly every page on the internet with the lowest score generally going to new pages and the highest scores awarded to high traffic authority sites such as NASA, the White House, Google, and Adobe. Google picks a date when they take a “snap shot” of a web page and use the information from that visit to calculate PageRank. This snap shot visit occurs approximately 3-4 times annually, but the results are not made public until Google exports [updates] their toolbar to show the latest rankings.

Snap Shot v. Export

There is a lot of confusion and misinformation throughout the internet world regarding PageRank. Importantly, Google does not publicly announce the date they visit a page to take a snaphot. However, if you were to visit a high performing site such as TechCrunch you would find that those articles posted on April 2nd show PageRank while articles posted from April 3rd on do not. Therefore, it is fairly safe to assume that the snap shot took place on April 3, 2007 or there abouts (Please note: I seem to recall seeing articles posted two weeks later that had a higher PageRank soon after the April update, but they are returning PR0 today — this could mean that there previous PageRank is about to be changed — April 19th could have been the true snap shot date; when the next export takes place you can visit TechCrunch to determine the August [or earlier] snap shot.

Is PageRank Important?

Webmasters debate the importance of PageRank with some dismissing it as an effective measurement of a site primarily because other factors weigh in such as position on search engine results pages [SERPs], site traffic, other ranking tools [e.g., Alexa and Technorati], and more. Other webmasters live or die with each PageRank change especially if they use that number to sell advertising including links, banner ads, etc. Clearly, ad rates on a PR5 page are higher than on a PR4 page something not lost on people who make a living online. Putting Google’s paid link policy to the side, the 3-4 times yearly update is long anticipated. Indeed, if you were to visit Digital Point you would see that the forum’s most popular thread is titled, Google’s 2007-Q3 PageRank (PR) Update,” and has had some 140,000 page views as of this writing.

A Hint at Things to Come

Immediately before Google exports the latest PageRank information to the Google toolbar, there are some hints that an update is taking place. With the current PageRank change taking longer to be exported than usual, webmasters are reporting seeing the following changes to their sites:

Grey bar or “no ranking” status on the Google toolbar for a previously unranked page is now white or PR0.

Information obtained from sites that check Google’s data centers reveal that a change is in progress. Before PageRank is exported to the Google toolbar, some 700 or more data centers must update their information. This process can take as long as one week, but it gives long waiting webmasters a strong hint where their pages stand before the export is completed.

At least one person claims that the new PageRank shows up first for sites listed in the Google Directory (whose links and categorization are from the Open Directory Project).

Delay or Going Away?

The latest update has occured, but an export to the Google toolbar for PageRank has not yet taken place. The SEO Company has been tracking PageRank updates going back to 2000 and they also attempt to predict when the next toolbar export will take place. Yes, their July 21st export prediction is way off, but if you were to ask the majority of webmasters what date they originally had in mind, most would have picked August 13th or earlier.

There has been plenty of speculation for the delay, with some of that based on Google’s new policy of paid link reporting. Some are theorizing that Google is building in a penalty for sites with paid links while others are saying that Google is attempting to get a handle on the many spammy/splog sites that achieve PageRank and should not. Even a new ranking system called Trust Rank has been discussed as a new way of measuring sites which could explain the delay (Please note that TrustRank is not a Google product.)

Moving On

Whichever way the next export shakes out, it will likely be talked about for some time thereafter. Google’s Matt Cutts is the head of the company’s Webspam team and is often the voice people turn to figure out what Google is up to; while he isn’t saying much at the moment about PageRank, that is likely to change once the next export has been completed. PageRank is a closely guarded secret although Google does share some information about their algorithm from time to time (again, usually through Matt Cutts).

In all, many will speculate how and when a PageRank takes place, its importance, its future, etc. Unless Google clearly outlines this information, most of what you read isn’t 100% accurate including this guide. Yet, if it is “buzz” you want, then I don’t know of much else that equals the amount of speculating given to Google’s unique link analysis tool.

Further Reading

The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

Google Technology (PageRank explained)

Search Illustrated: PageRank Explained

Photo Credit: Creative Commons — Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic — to FML