Now, this is depressing news. Brace yourselves.
I downloaded and installed the Google toolbar this evening, just so I could check the PageRank of my site. Yeah, I know there are third party sites out there that do the same job, but I wanted the information from the horse’s mouth, as it were.
I wish I hadn’t bothered.
My PageRank is zero! Nought! Nil! Nothing! Nada! Zilch! You get the picture.
(For those that are unaware, PageRank is the system by which Google decides the priority of sites turning up in search results. It’s passed on by linking: getting linked to by a site with a high PageRank score can dramatically increase your own, thus netting you some serious search engine visability. As always, if you want to know more, Wikipedia is your friend.)
I really don’t understand how this can be. I mean, I am not expecting anything too dramatic, but a solid 4 surely wouldn’t have been out of the question? I even have the Google Sitemaps plugin installed, and everything!
It’s not like I don’t appear in Google at all anyway – as this search shows. So maybe there’s an argument that who cares?
The trouble is that I do.
Just replied to your Seesmic post on this. It sounds as though you could be in Google’s alleged “sandbox” (google for it) – may be something temporary. I dropped off of Googles radar for a while myself, but popped back after 3 or 4 weeks. Actually now I find that my posts generally don’t show up in Google, but my name does. It’s a bit frustrating, I feel your pain!
Thanks Andy, caught your Seesmic reply too. I wonder about this especially in terms of Google punishing me for “dodgy” links, because I have noticed that a number of my posts are being replublished on splogs without my consent. It hasn’t really bothered me before, because they always link back to here so people know where the original content is, but maybe Google thinks I am producing spam blogs to boost my visibility?
It’s possible.
Oh, now that’s interesting. I twittered earlier about the fact that my stuff is increasingly being linked on splogs too, so I wonder if that is why my posts don’t seem to show up on Google so much any more. Hrm! Good thinking.
Really, you shouldn’t worry about PageRank, Technorati rankings or any other metric that can be gamed.
Instead, you should measure success by the quality of your comments, your email convos and how your blogging has had an impact on your professional standing and development.
Well I’ve been experimenting with this some more and I’m unable to get any of my individual posts to appear as Google hits. I can get my front page to show up, and that’s all. Intriguing. So I may be in an almost identical position to you. Grr.
The same happen to me,until yesterday i have pr 4 now 0,i also have another site wth pr 3 now 0,i don't know…..,but affortunatly i still have around 30.000 unic visits daily….