"Google Ditches PageRank" WebProNews

[Mark]

Google Ditches PageRank in Webmaster Tools

It Still Remains in the Google Toolbar

Google has quietly gotten rid of PageRank in Webmaster Tools. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a thread featuring an explanation from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa.

"We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," says Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it."
PageRank Distribution Removed From WMT - Webmaster Central Help

Google Ditches PageRank in Webmaster Tools | WebProNews

They don't want people to rely on it too much ... Something many of us have been saying for years

 

[enlytend]

Good! I liked this quote:

Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim says the role of PageRank has been reduced to nothing more than a "comfort blanket for SEO Noobs."

 

[Archangel]

I've always felt a great swell of pity for the idiots who "knew for a fact" that PR was among the most important factors in SEO. Ugh.

 

[labrocca]

It's about time. I thought it was screwed up of Google to offer a page ranking parameter and then penalize sites that took monetary advantage of it. I believed that's to be hyporcritical given their immense wealth from their search engine. At any time they could have made this decision to stop the resale of pagerank links. It's a good move on their part.

I've always felt a great swell of pity for the idiots who "knew for a fact" that PR was among the most important factors in SEO. Ugh.

Hey if you can make a buck off it then why not? I sold tons of links just for the Pagerank system. I guess now all these link farms will die given they all used PR as their focus.

DP coop and Link Vault will be dead in days. I hope they remove it asap from their toolbar.