PageRank and Other January Musings

Google updated their PageRank on December 31st. Did you notice?

I must admit that I missed the blessed event which is strange considering that I was working on that date. Still, Google did what has now become an uncommon event: they exported their PageRank to the Google toolbar.

What this means is that everyone’s site has been reevaluated and assigned a fresh rank based on Google’s algorithm, a formula which remains a mystery to all except for those who are part of Google’s inner circle. Everyone has an opinion on how PageRank works, but unless your name is Matt Cutts and you’re talking, then then the rest of us should doubt what is being said.

For the record, Matt’s Musings remains at PR3 while my three other main sites are also now at PR3. The Article Writer dropped a notch, Word Journey climbed a notch, while Auto Trends remains the same. Talk about ranking parity when the traffic patterns for all four sites vary widely! Still, my linking strategies must have changed otherwise Google wouldn’t have adjusted their rankings accordingly.

So, what does this mean? Not much. Given that the toolbar export happens weeks after Google reassigns PageRank internally and that PageRank is a constantly fluctuating commodity, the ranking you see isn’t particularly accurate. Or at least it isn’t so today.

I haven’t dismissed PageRank completely, but I use other measuring points to gauge traffic including Google Analytics and Alexa. All three combined plus Compete and checking backlinks give me a better picture on how my sites are doing, but I’m sure that there are other measurements out there. I just don’t want to pay for them.

Beyond Matt Cutts there is much more to add today. But, I won’t bore you with trivialities or boorish behavior.

Revisiting LinkedIn

I was considering amending something I mentioned on New Year’s Day about LinkedIn, but decided against it. Instead, all I want to add about that is if you are on LinkedIn, you need to fill out your profile completely and obtain at least two recommendations in order for your information to be fully visible.

LinkedIn can also be valuable if you add the right keywords and keyword phrases to your profile. I stick these under “Specialties” which is part of the Summary section in my profile. Those words tell a lot about who I am and what I do for my customers, but they also add some SEO benefit to my page.

As mentioned previously and confirmed by so many others in the industry, Google loves LinkedIn profiles which means that when you Google your (unique) name, your LinkedIn data should appear on the first page of the search engine results page (SERP). Thank you, Matt Cutts!

Writing Better

Lastly, I want to encourage each of my readers who are inspiring writers to step up a notch in 2010.  I know of at least two people who want to expand their writing so that their works might appear on high profile sites and in select print publications for the very first time.

In order to do that, you must work at improving your writing. Certainly a writing class can help, but most bloggers have that down pat. They just need to incorporate some generally accepted rules to bring their writing up to the next level.

There are three books that can help you write better, each of which I own, but none which are offering me compensation to plug them (disclaimer). They are: The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (AP Stylebook); Grammar Smart: A Guide to Perfect Usage (The Princeton Review); and The Chicago Manual of Style.

The AP stylebook is a must but if you find the Chicago Manual too bulky, then Grammar Smart can do the trick. In any case you will want to invest in yourself  by purchasing materials which can advance your work. Read and study them; apply what you learn to your writings. And if you get published, let me know!

Looking Beyond Your PageRank

Last Wednesday — April 1, 2009 to be precise — Google was up to their usual tricks for April Fool’s Day. I didn’t pay much attention to their annual spoof, rather I soon found myself occupied with reviewing their PageRank export to the Google toolbar.

Yes, it appears that Google is hitting its stride with the all-important, but not that important Google PageRank update, by making changes on a quarterly basis. I say important because for some people it is the chief way that they measure their site’s worth, but I also say not important because there are many different factors and tools which tell how well a site is performing.

My PageRank Report Card

For the record, Matt’s Musings went from PR2 to PR3, WordJourney from PR3 to PR2, AutoTrends held steady at PR3 while The Article Writer is back up to PR4. FYI, The Article Writer made its debut at PR6 in June 2005 before gradually falling to PR5 before dropping to PR3.

Several tiny, niche sites (and even placeholder pages) I manage acquired their first ranking, PR1 to be exact, while my client’s two blogs at SayEducate.com and SayCampusLife.com managed to hold onto their previous PR4 position.

Other Ways To Measure Success

Granted, any drop in PageRank can be frustrating especially if you’ve been link building and using other methods to promote your site. However, there are other ways to measure the value of your website including:

Alexa Rank — Once widely panned by the SEO community, Alexa has gained some respect if only for their frequent updates which occur several times each month. The lower your Alexa number the higher your score.  However, it can easily be gamed through sites like Entrecard which encourage others to visit your site to inflate traffic numbers.

Google Analytics — If you run Google Analytics, you can gain an excellent understanding of your site’s traffic trends. While you won’t get a “rank” for how well your site performs, you will be able to gauge traffic numbers including page views, sources, and how well your AdWords campaigns perform.

Compete — Like Google Analytics, you can receive site traffic history and measure how your site compares against your chief competitors with Compete. Even in the basic (free) format, you can obtain some decent information about your site as well as your competition.

Semrush — Forget PageRank as I want to see how my sites perform with specific keywords. Recently, I discovered that the sharply increasing traffic to my The Auto Writer blog was bringing a lot of good attention my way. Turns out that I secured the #1 keyword phrase for a new vehicle about to be introduced, sending 200+ extra visitors to my site each day. Semrush has a freebie tool which can help you identify some of the results for free. Pay a monthly fee and you can get a hold of all of that information.

SERPs — You can check any search engine’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) manually to see how your site is doing. Honestly, I only check Google these days because of their dominance in the world of search. However, I also use Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools to analyze all of my data.

Miscellany — Of course, I use Twitter to help build contacts online and have been particularly taken by Twitter Search which is an excellent way to find out who has been talking about your favorite topic recently.  I also like to use a good backlink checker to find out who is linking to me, I let Google notify me when certain keywords or phrases I’m following get mentioned. Additionally, I like to peak at domain tools when I want to obtain information about a client, a competitor or when I’m considering purchasing a domain or website.

So, as you can see PageRank doesn’t carry quite the weight that it some think that it should, given the many different measurements to quantify your site’s success. True, I would love to have a higher ranking from Google across my network of sites, but it is the other factors that weigh heavily and seem to bring fresh business my way.