Possible Explanations for the PageRank Penalty Sweep
I’m not entirely sure I want to write this article. I think one of the best ways to reduce the impact of Google’s PageRank is to talk less about it. If you ignore something it loses all power.
However, people still seem to care about PageRank. Webmasters care, bloggers care, search engine optimizers care. Even bloggers who are writing articles telling us not to care about PageRank are somewhat contradicting their own advice by contributing to the conversation. I’m about to do the same.
Given the PageRank changes in the last day or two, in particular the penalties handed out to some sites and blogs that even the best search engine optimizers are dumbfounded attempting to determine an explanation for, I felt I should throw in my two cents about what I think Google is doing.
A Brief History
To put this into context I’ll quickly recount what I’ve watched happen and experienced myself over the past few weeks and over the course of my time caring about PageRank (about five or six years now).
Did I Get Hit With A PageRank Penalty?
I just can’t seem to get it right about this whole PageRank update thing. First I thought PageRank was updating, then I noticed it was just some sites dropping in PR, then I thought it was updating again when this blog dropped from a 6 to a 5, but now it seems it could have just been a penalty applied to my blog manually.
Penalized For Selling Links?
Based on the conversations going on, some referencing to my blog as an example to prove the point, it appears that Google could be going around and manually penalizing sites by dropping their visible PageRank and possibly penalizing their search results too, as a punishment for selling text links.
I can’t verify any of this of course, but let’s speculate as if it were true for the sake of the discussion.
Real PageRank Update In Progress
Ok, perhaps my last post about PageRank updating was premature, but now there’s enough signs in the forums that the PageRank update is happening.
Not only are the forums buzzing about it, but it appears this blog has dropped from a 6 to a 5 as well – bummer! Actually I’m noting a drop across the board at nearly all my sites and so far most people seem to be reporting either a drop one place down or no movement at all.
Has anyone enjoyed a PageRank increase this update?
The Google Honeymoon Period
I have no doubt this topic has been discussed on many SEO forums before but I’m going to give my take on it based on what I have experienced.
The “Google Honeymoon” as I call it, is the period 24-48 hours after producing a new web page where it first ranks in the Google search index. In my experience for the next 2-4 weeks the page will rank particularly highly and then drop back to whatever is normal for the website.
When I first publish a new article in this blog I generally receive a first page rank for the keywords in the title and possibly the tagged internal keywords too. Generally if the search term isn’t uber-popular I can hold the number 1, 2 or 3 position for a few weeks and then it drops to somewhere around positions 4-10. Bear in mind this blog has a high PageRank and good authority so it ranks quite well, what is considered normal for your blog or website might be pages 3-10 with a brief stint on the first or second page during the “honeymoon”.
For periods of time I’ve had top three rankings for terms related to the articles I have recently published, including keywords such as Mike Filsaime, Butterfly Marketing and Rich Schefren, clearly keywords that have some competition if not from the guys themselves than other Internet marketers.
You SEO fanatics can correct me if I am wrong but I believe the honeymoon period occurs so Google can collect data on how relevant your pages are for those keywords. If during the honey your pages are clicked often and the visitor hangs around for a while (doesn’t click back and choose another option from the search results) then your drop after the honeymoon isn’t significant. The logic being that your page offers a good answer to the question being asked. If your page doesn’t get many clicks or people don’t stay around then after the honeymoon you can expect your page to drop further in the index.
As I said I’m only speculating on this, but the pattern definitely occurs for me on this blog. It’s certainly fun to watch initially while the honeymoon is on and I’m happy with how well my site ranks in general, but it’s always a bit of a let down when you lose a first position ranking. By being aware of the honeymoon you can at least understand why you might suddenly lose your rankings, though of course it’s foolish to ever believe you can be 100% certain of what Google is doing.
Has AdSense Gone Too Far?
I watched the movie Titanic with Leo and Kate on Friday night. It’s a good movie and afterwards I was interested to learn more about the tragedy so I Googled up some answers. As I progressed through page after page something started to bother me. I had trouble finding the real content because there was Google AdSense in all the most prominent places on EVERY site I visited. It wasn’t until I hit the “clean” Wikipedia entry on the Titanic that I finally got some valuable information.
Google has to be commended for providing one of the best ways to monetize a website. It’s so good because even the most average Webmaster can easily cut and paste some code to start earning some cash from their web property. Even sites that have a clear purpose and real content still apply some AdSense here and there for the “extra cash” that can be earned. Afterall you would rather someone clicked AdSense ads on your site when they exit so you get your 20 cents.
The problem is that when a webmaster gets a taste for the money suddenly their eyes start to sparkle and you hear that “cha-ching” noise. The possibility dawns – I can make real money on the Internet – and suddenly the motivation behind building the website goes from one of indulging in a hobby to making money. More and more AdSense blocks appear on sites and it becomes harder to find the real content.
Theoretically of course you would think that the AdSense ads themselves should have the content I’m looking for. For me personally I long ago caught “AdSense blindness” unless it’s a very specific Google search. Any AdSense on websites I ignore, just the way I ignored banners in their heyday. Plus most AdSense ads are for products or services relating to my keyword -rarely does an AdSense ad actually provide the best free content about a topic, afterall, the AdWords buyer is usually there to make sales.
Now we are faced with a situation where AdSense is proliferating at an outstanding rate and thousands of webmasters build sites specifically to earn money. Many of these site owners realize that content is still important, so they work hard to locate original content for their sites, but it’s still contrived content – just enough to get some reasonable Google rankings so the traffic starts to trickle in and the AdSense clicks increase. It’s not content created from a genuine interest in the subject. Compare this to a webmaster who hasn’t discovered AdSense yet and builds a site to provide the best content. Money doesn’t come into the motivation equation at all in this case.
But does that matter? Does the quality of our Internet increase or decrease if everyone who publishes a website does it, at least partially, to make money?
If we go back to the days before AdSense people were trying to make money. They did it much the same as they do now – with affiliate programs and CPM banner campaigns – AdSense just added another, very effective monetization method. Perhaps my argument is moot – money will always be part of the motivation.
AdSense made it all too easy. When your average hobbyist can actually see that $5 a day come in there is an immediate impact on their motivation. The taste of the money is so much more tangible because the results are quick and easy. It’s because banner ads and affiliate marketing are generally harder for novices to have significant success with that they don’t spark the same far-reaching penetration that AdSense does.
Maybe Google AdSense will begin to perform poorly for advertisers and “blindness” may become a problem like it did for banners. However I don’t think the impact will ever be significant. The average net user does not see text as advertising and I don’t see that characteristic changing. This means finding the real answer to our questions may become harder and harder as more site owners drown their content with AdSense to make money. I find that quite ironic considering Google came about as a better alternative to finding answers to questions.
Yaro Starak
