tools PageRank is GONE - Now What?

Google has been hinting for some time that toolbar Page Rank is going away for good. This past weekend they made good on their promises. If you use any pagerank checking tools, expect to see a 0 or an error for page rank values, including fake pagerank checks.

I found a couple of sites yesterday which looked like they had some values cached, but over time those numbers will become less and less meaningful. When it was pulled, toolbar page rank was already getting pretty funky around the edges, as it hadn't been updated in about 2-3 years.

So Google doesn't use PageRank any more?

Nope - they are. They're just not sharing it with you.

Google has always had 2 kinds of "page rank":

• The public "toolbar" kind which we all know and love
• An internal, more precise "secret sauce" version

Public "toolbar" page rank metrics were just a simplified snapshot of the site's importance based upon links to the site. In its heyday it was updated roughly every 3 months. It was helpful in quickly assessing a site (or domain) as long as you realized its limitations. Especially that 3 month window.

Google's internal page rank is a more precise and complex value which is updated constantly in real time. This "secret sauce" value isn't going away - they just won't be sharing the dumbed-down public version any more.

Why did they get rid if it?

• Because it had become pretty useless since they stopped updating it!
• They stopped updating it because it had a long history of abuse.

Despite Google's good intentions, an entire industry developed around the buying and selling of links for page rank, leading to an epidemic of precisely the kind of "unnatural linking" which Google hates. The lack of real-time updates opened a window of opportunity for scammers.

What are the alternatives?

Tools which used to display page rank will probably replace it with one or more of the other major link metric API's - MOZ, Majestic or Ahrefs - if they haven't already. Similar to PageRank, all three assign values based quantity and quality of backlinks, but each uses their own index and proprietary formula.

MOZ DA / PA - MOZ Domain Authority and the URL equivalent, Page Authority, are based on several factors including link popularity,link trust and age. It's meant to be an assessment of how easily the site / page would rank. The scale is logorithmic from 0 to 100, which means it's easier to go from 20 to 30 than from 30 to 40.

MOZ api access has tiered pricing. You can access 25,000 rows of data per month for free, with a $50 surcharge for each 10,000 additional rows. Paid plans start at $500/month. It's a good metric, but of the three major link research platforms, MOZ has the smallest and shallowest index. When it comes to data, size matters.

Majestic TF/CF (Trust Flow / Citation Flow) - Unlike MOZ and Ahrefs, Majestic splits their metrics into to two separate values instead of combining data into one.

• Trust flow represents the number of clicks away a domain is from a set of highly-trusted sites (like the Kevin Bacon degrees of separation game.)
• Citation Flow is a measurement of the number of citations to the URL or domain.

The ratio of TF to CF is important - a high citation flow and a low trust flow can indicate a lot of spammy links.

Majetic's API is only available to users of their Platinum and Enterprise plans, which start at around $400/month.

Ahrefs Domain Rating and URl Rating - Like MOZ's Domain Authority and Page Authority, they are based on the quantity and quality of backlinks to the domain and to the URL respectively. Ahrefs also has Global Rank, which you can think of as being like a link-based Alexa ranking.

AHrefs API subscriptions start around $500/month, but small sites may be able to get smaller amounts of data for less through OpenApp access via an Ahrefs partner.

Ahrefs and Majestic index sizes are comparable, but its important to note that they will not always have the same data due to differences in their crawl patterns and their metrics will differ due to differences in their ranking algorithms.

So what can I use to check out domains, post Page Rank?

Since metrics from Google's all-inclusive index are no longer available, I'd gravitate towards tools which display metrics from all 3 sources mentioned above and compare, keeping in mind that the data may not be in all indices - especially for smaller sites/domains.

If you want to research domains away from the prying eyes of 3rd party sites:

• Sign up for a free MOZ account and get an API key
• Buy a copy of Scrapebox for a one-time fee of $97 ($57 or less if you score a coupon)
• Download the Page Authority Addon and have at it

You can access up to 25,000 rows per month for free. If you go over your 25K allotment, you're charged $50/each additional 10,000 rows, so use it wisely.

 

[TERADOMAIN]

Good one.

 

[Frank.Schilling]

Winning at search is like playing a game of three-card Monty in times square. Its a stark lesson to all those who would "develop" and try to game their way to the top of algorithmic search results. There is no substitute for an intuitive name that lowers your lifetime marketing costs. Buy domain names and have the wind at your back. At the end of the day Google indexes names and the better your name the more likely somebody will link to you and Google will either index you or risk having their user leave their platform to navigate to you directly.

 

[Recons.Com]

Winning at search is like playing a game of three-card Monty in times square. Its a stark lesson to all those who would "develop" and try to game their way to the top of algorithmic search results. There is no substitute for an intuitive name that lowers your lifetime marketing costs. Buy domain names and have the wind at your back. At the end of the day Google indexes names and the better your name the more likely somebody will link to you and Google will either index you or risk having their user leave their platform to navigate to you directly.

I agree. I always wondered though why you went with "brandable" UniRegistry, while probably could have gotten one of the intuitive ones, like reg, domain, domains, registrations, registry, registrar, names or similar (not sure which one was available and when, but you have been in the industry very long). Would really appreciate the insight.

 

[enlytend]

Winning at search is like playing a game of three-card Monty in times square. Its a stark lesson to all those who would "develop" and try to game their way to the top of algorithmic search results. .

Not at all !
SEO in the lighter hat colors, done right, is not about "gaming" anything. It's about giving searchers what they want and need (relevant to your business goals) and providing search engines with the signals they need to understand and process it effectively.
Those who dabble in the darker "hats" and are good at it know what they're doing and fully expect certain results to have a limited lifespan.

But I'm not sure how this relates to my post? If you're browsing a list of domains, DA/TF/CF can give you a quick indication of what kind of baggage (positive or negative) they may have from past use.

 

[GetBigDomains]

Had the same issue lately. One cause is promoting or sharing a page/site that is nolonger up. To fix it it needs quality content and non bounce traffic (click on click off) they need to stay on the page/site and click through additional content or optionally click on your ads.
Whether you can get the page rank back is a different matter as some rank by word alone. But without a landing page -there is usually not a PR of more than 1. An example is that I regged a domain itches.info and it was already page rank 1 and stayed PR1 even though I put a load of.. On it. Another example is that 12XXaw was PR3 and I promoted it with no page at all or I had put a dummy page then decided to park it. I've only had it for lessthan 2 weeks and I have ruinned it. I hold responsibilty for that as I forgot. But what I don't like is Cax updating your domain worth to $1 or $0 on valuate after months of hard graft aond higher valuations both on valuate and estibot and others. This is the worst experience I have had. This can also wipe the rank right away. They only like valuable domains anyway. All your mediocre sites will be wiped even if you had built them nicely.
So that's my experience so far. I also accidently promoted Namestar.org and it had a rankk and now it's gone. Don't promote okay and just leave it with the old (previous site) preview showing. Unless it is a single word domain. That's all I know about it and I hope this helps someone!

 

[GetBigDomains]

And if its a real site or blog Dmoz it what ever that is I did one I put it in the right category. That will help to rank. If the content is relevant. If it's highly premium 2 ways of filling it quick.. obtain a niche site with adsense/ebay/amazon google loves it search through seoX on that link you can get from $5 put your adsense or ads in it and a few words. Or get someone to design you a site for $99 as this will be worth it in the end, while you wait and will put value in your sale. It will help it's better than parking or seeing nothing. Some parking will keep their value if single word and left untouched or page with relevancy.

 

[GetBigDomains]

So dont backlink/FB share a site that doesnt exist! And avoid Cax like the wind.. Unless its over $2k value on Valuate of natural search.
Over and out.

 

[frostify]

Nothing will ever beat building quality links over time with strategy and effort. There is no such thing as a "get pagerank quick" method or buying spammy links. You can't fool Big G.

 

[GetBigDomains]

I agree, but just saying that for people who are not able to build sites. They could put in a script and have someone install it for less than a take away. It would help and help them to learn something which could later become useful. Or a good blog. But I was also highlighting that it must have quality content. I'm nolonger building sites due to the fact that I'm aware of legal and regional matters. But for many this does not apply. You can PLAN and make a nice site or blog and write it carefully. I am merely testing as I am studying, so hope that I'm not giving the wrong impression. I built proper sites but unfortunately the host went down and I don't feel like doing that hard work anymore.
I currently have one adult tube site plenty of traffic! and one this page is for sale script.
So this post is useful (thank you).
-M

 

[enlytend]

Nothing will ever beat building quality links over time with strategy and effort. There is no such thing as a "get pagerank quick" method or buying spammy links. You can't fool Big G.

Some people can ... and do ... but it's a high-risk practice.

Links still matter. If you can get a domain that already has high-quality relevant links to it, you're ahead of the game. That's where looking at link metrics like the finally-defunct PR comes in. You still need to look beyond the numbers, but they're useful in pre-screening domains to identify those that may have the added value of a strong backlink profile.

 

[Michael Ehrhardt]

who need,s Google ?

 

[BrandChimp]

Thank you so much! I though all pr checker sites where wrong!

 

[BrandChimp]

who need,s Google ?

The entire world

 

[Vinod R]

Nice writeup, got me to remember the old days when PR was a king, keeping us more engaged in checking them and building our websites for them.

 

[Michael Ehrhardt]

The entire world

than there is something wrong

 

[VaibhavA]

Thanks for the share.

 

[martworld]

who need,s Google ?

I need it.

 

[martworld]

Pagerank was dead and long gone. Google stopped updating the PR since last 2 years. All the sites have old page ranks which are simple irrelevant. What google now has done is officially made all sites with PR to 0 which is good for users who buy sites and domains based on PR which was dead 2 years before(but people are not aware).

 

[Kenny]

XLNT post enlytend.
Informative and entertaining.
Keep them coming.
Thanks

Peace,
Cyberian

 

[Michael Ehrhardt]

America, the state of independence ?

 

[AEProgram]

Now expect a rash of scammers telling people that prior to google removing their PR from the publics view they had a PR10

 

[deez007]

Now expect a rash of scammers telling people that prior to google removing their PR from the publics view they had a PR10

I have a domain for sale, it was PR8 man.. then Google dropped the PR scoring from public view. I can sell it to u for $1000... but dont tell anyone....bwhahahahahaha

 

[enlytend]

Now expect a rash of scammers telling people that prior to google removing their PR from the publics view they had a PR10

That scam's been running for a long time. Get a legit PR domain, use it for something spammy, when it gets deindexed sell fast before the page rank updates and it's gray barred.

When G stopped updating page rank, that window of opportunity just got bigger.

If anything, removing it may prompt more people to do some research rather than blindly trusting a number..

Every once in a while I see a "PR5" or "PR6" domain for sale on the forums and run it through Ahrefs. 99% either have a toxic looking link profile or show a lot of link loss with just a handful left that don't justify that number. They would never have kept that rating on a data refresh.

who need,s Google ?

If you are doing fine on other traffic channels good for you! But seeing as how Google still holds the largest search market share (except in China, Russia and North Korea), if you're doing well without Google search traffic, wouldn't you do that much better with it ?

But good riddance to this obsolete metric.

 

[Michael Ehrhardt]

That scam's been running for a long time. Get a legit PR domain, use it for something spammy, when it gets deindexed sell fast before the page rank updates and it's gray barred.

If anything, removing it may prompt more people to do some research rather than blindly trusting a number..

Every once in a while I see a "PR5" or "PR6" domain for sale on the forums and run it through Ahrefs. 99% either have a toxic looking link profile or show a lot of link loss with just a handful left that don't justify that number. They would never have kept that rating on a data refresh.


If you are doing fine on other traffic channels good for you! But seeing as how Google still holds the largest search market share (except in China, Russia and North Korea), if you're doing well without Google search traffic, wouldn't you do that much better with it ?

But good riddance to this obsolete metric.

i never done something special with Google and still i was on the first place with : nexusm
so i really dont need Google