Google PageRank Updates, Why People Hate Ranks and Why Spiderman 3 Ranks Low

The new Google PageRank updates are now reflecting on our toolbars. Thanks to the SEO Philippines message board for the heads up. Again, Google has been kind to me. Ok maybe too kind. Besides maintaining my directory‘s PR 7, all the top categories have garnered a PR 6 each, including a good number of lower categories. My two other blogs, Darn Slick and My Davao City both shot up to PR 5. It’s also great to hear that a lot of Seo.ph members earned some PR gains on their sites.

I see Google PageRank as a “please factor’ that I like to look at on my toolbar every now and then. I tend to just work on content and backlinks and leave it to Google to judge if I’m doing a nice job. Other sites link to me not just for the sake of it. They link to me because I give them good reason to — great, original, interesting content. If that reflects on my PageRank, then wonderful. A high PageRank does go a long way in SEO terms — you get crawled more frequently, thus keeping your cache fresh, you get a better chance of ranking higher for keywords you’re targeting and as a result you get higher traffic. I’m an SEO junkie, so don’t blame me for liking PageRank or any kind of rank for that matter.

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Speaking of ranks, my new directory Ratified.org ranks the Philippines’ top blogs using data from Technorati.com. A Google search for Ratified.org now returns 13,000 results, up from just 7 before Aileen blogged about it. I have been doing my homework people. 🙂 From the looks of it, not everyone likes the idea of Ratified.org. Blogging purists (if there is such a thing) say that rank should be based on quality of content and readership, not on links alone. I agree with that notion, but it is simply impossible to grade content, right? People have different levels of taste. One blog that you praise oh so highly may be disliked by another. My message to you “purists” is: Don’t leave links out of the big picture. Like I said above, you’re being linked for good reason. Bloggers read blogs too you know. If you don’t believe me then ask everyone to stop linking to you and see what happens. It’s high time that bloggers should learn SEO.

Back to Ratified.org, I am working on the readership factor, but it is quite difficult given that not all blogs are on Feedburner right now. Pinoy Top Blogs is another directory that ranks blogs based on traffic. I love Pinoy Top Blogs, but to those questioning Ratified.org, does it also do justice to ranking blogs? I am happily ranked 39th by the way.

Just like PTB, the way that Ratified.org ranks blogs is totally unbiased. I simply took data out of Technorati and then ranked them accordingly. Just like you, I’m particularly surprised to see Yuga at only #12. Abe pointed out some factors that would give undue advantage to some blogs over the others specifically theme and plugin authors (ouch) and other schemes meant to game the system. I am seriously considering that, and would be willing to un-rank myself in the process.

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I watched Spiderman 3 yesterday. The movie felt like it took 3 hours to finish (it was about 2). The script was blotchy and predictable. Spiderman 1 is the still the best. Watch this one with some reservation, or you’re in for a big disappointment.

8 comments

  1. Hi Andrew. Great post here! In my limited exposure, I can say that some of the suggestions you get were partly reflective of concerns with PTB then.

    The challenge I had with Pinoy Top Blogs is that it lumps all blogs into one ranking. There were suggestions before to present rankings according to a blog’s category. As a lot of blogs tend to have a mix of topics, that may not be achieved as well. Unlike newspapers and publications where niche are clearly identified, a blogger can simply change his or her mind on how they want their blog to be classified.

    I stopped using PTB when it had a lot of down time in the past and have not been able to reactivate since.

  2. Weeeh, I guess I’m one of those blogging “purists”. 😉 But don’t get me wrong, I commend you for coming up with Ratified. I myself am interested in the concept itself. And just to make things clear, I don’t hate ranks — what I hate is how some people translate it into something absolute. It gets tiring to deal with them who, in the process of trying hard to rank higher (which also means money, right? hehe), offer content that deteriorates over time. Add that to the fact that some people have to actually resort to some schemes just to increase their Technorati rank (and that doesn’t include theme & plugin authors) just for them to rank higher. Parang yung mismong concept ng ranking tuloy ang nawawalan ng saysay. Haaay, how sad.

  3. @Ayeza: Thanks, I appreciate your support!

    @Janette: I do remember you mentioning your concerns before. Abe’s been having trouble keeping PTB alive due to high server costs. I think he’s found someone to sponsor it though.

    @Shari: You’re right. Let’s just say the blogs who increased their ranks through artificial means have been “marked”. You’ll see drastic changes in the ranks soon.

  4. I have a handful of topics right now(thanks to my comic marathon-ing) but alas we can’t even think of a name XD

    Ps. You should have made a mindset that they’ll fuck up the continuity in spidey3 like I did, I forgot to hate marvel coz I was laughing too hard :p

  5. Hi Andrew. You may also want to consider the parameters being used to compute one’s blog juice. When I was working on my site the other day, I was surprised to find that my Ituloy AngSulong entry has the highest blog juice in all my sites.

  6. hello, i would just like to ask where to get a proper google page rank for my blog? tapos if i use a subfolder as my main blog address, will that subfolder have a different rank compared to my actual url lang? thanks!

  7. @RJ: Find a theme!! Hahaha.

    @Janette: Yep I’m adding other parameters besides Technorati.

    @ria: Hi ria, it’s always better to have your site’s hierarchy begin in the root folder. Google tends to give utmost importance to the root domain, therefore pagerank tends to be higher than if you place your site in a subfolder. One other advantage is you’ll be much easier to link to. There is a natural tendency for one to link to your root URL without including the /subfolder (in your case /wordpress). What happens is the root gets the link juice, not your subfolder. But as I see it you’ve already started at the subfolder. If your site is still relatively new, you might want to consider moving while it’s early.

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