Google Toolbar PageRank only for entertainment purposes?
Google PageRank controversy - Is Google PageRank for real “Google Toolbar PageRank only for entertainment purposes?
Last week, two statements about Google’s PageRank started a new discussion about this topic.
The first statement was made in the Search Engine Watch forums. It was from a person who received the following answer to a PageRank question from a Google employee:
“The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only.’
Due to repeated attempts by hackers to access this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequently because is it not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is several months old.
If the toolbar is showing a PR of zero, this is because the user is visiting a new URL that hasn’t been updated in the last update.
The PR that is displayed by the Google Toolbar is not the same PR that is used to rank the webpage results so there is no need to be concerned if your PR is displayed as zero.
If a site is showing up in the search results, it doesn’t not have a real PR of zero, the Toolbar is just out of date’”
We believe that this is somewhat true. There is probably a delay, but the Google PageRank is a good tool for a quick reference on site popularity in my opinion.