No PageRank Update, What Now?

Writing out from Spain, with an extremely low connection (so slow that I can’t even upload files on my sites) and getting bored and annoyed so much that I went back on reading forums and blogs around (thing which, lately, I have been doing less and less).

One thing that grabbed my attention on the forums is the discussions regard Google PageRank that hasn’t been updated for over 5 months now and how so many webmaster feel lost without PageRank. The amazing thing is that they were really based solely on PageRank to find quality sites to get links from and now without the update they feel like lost..it happens when you get used to have everything served in a plate without lifting a finger. The fun part is that these so called webmasters and seo’s now are forced to get back to the basics in order to find the light at the end of the tunnel, those that will move fast might see the light..others will just sink down and hope that almighty Google one day will decide to do them the favor and update PageRank.

Con’s Of Relying on Google PageRank to determine quality of a site and find link partners

Even tho it is true that PageRank can be a strong indicator of the link popularity of a site and it is closely related to the crawl rate the site gets, it is however wrong to rely on Google PageRank solely when you look after link partners and resources where you can publish your articles (guest blogging or article directory submission).

It is wrong because Google PageRank can be tricked out and manipulated. During my research of link partners for some of my sites I have ended up into so many stupid webmasters that thought could their way through easily and get a link swap or even sell a link inventory, the sad part tho is..that they are for a long period in business and I believe that many other people have been scammed. Yes, I use the word scammed because that’s what it is and I will explain you now and use as an example one last case I was involved to, while searching for link partners for a car related site I was approached by a webmaster with a high PR website asking for a link swap, it would have been a great link swap since the site had the double PR then mine..and if I didn’t check the background of the site then I would have been tricked as well, because the site was an old “psychology” related site who’s domain dropped and the webmaster just registered the domain and recycled it as an car related site just because of the high PageRank.

Pro’s of not relying to Google PageRank

As I said, if I had just relied to PageRank I would have most likely exchanged links with a recycled site and be fooled, tricked and manipulated. That webmaster would have got a link from a site that has been heavily promoted, with high quality unique content, top rankings for its targeted keywords and gain more authority as a “car related” site which it wasn’t, while I would have just had a link from a sloppy recycled site.

So how do we check a site’s quality without even checking its Google PR? There are 3 main things I do check on sites with which I want to exchange links, submit my articles or whatever else involves linking and building a link profile;

• Check the link profile of the site
• Check the domain age of the site (and the web archive)
• Check the number of indexed pages the site has

The link profile of a website is a great indicator if the site has been recycled or not. If it is a car related site then obviously it’s link profile should be from car related sites.

The domain age of a site is also a good indicator and it means that the site has been online for awhile. We also know that the age of the site or the page (from where we have a link) play role on determining some sort of an “authority” of the site in the eyes of the search engines. In simple words it means: old sites were not build from webmasters to just make quick money, they were build with the intend to last long.

The number of the pages indexed of a site is another indicator of a “quality” site since this shows the site is being active and the owner of the site is regularly updating their site (well okey, this more relays to blogs and sites that use some sort of a CMS mainly).

Now that you know at least 3 key points on which to rely you can give up on PageRank as resource to determine the quality of the site, you will learn more long the way and be able to find better link partners for your site and increase your search engine rankings.

If you have any other tip or suggestion that you would like to share with the others, leave a comment bellow and spread around the knowledge.

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