Google PageRank Shock

Well I don’t know what’s going on at Google at the moment but once again they are creating a major stir with their latest PageRank shakeup. There are a lot of theories as to why Google is re-ranking many blogs and websites and most centre around Google taking issue with the selling of text links and excessive interlinking within blog networks. I can understand the issue with the selling of text links as this essentially goes against Google’s preference for natural linking methods and goodness knows what this means for companies such as Text Link Ads. Could their days be numbered?

As for the theory about interlinking within blog networks this could be a common theme amongst the penalised websites but this seems to me, to be a grey area of sorts. If for instance the sites on a particular network are relevant, good quality and have unique content then surely they are as viable as any other site. I really don’t see a problem with this. Surely Google have bigger fish to fry and should be focusing on clearing their index of splogs.

Three websites where I’m a regular visitor seem to have taken a PR nosedive. These are ProBlogger which is run by Darren Rowse, Entrepreneurs Journey by Yaro Starak and John Chow’s website. All have gone from PR 5-6 to PR 4 which is a considerable drop to say the least. I’ve not seen any complaints about overall traffic at the moment but this may only become apparent after all the fuss has died down as initially these sites will have received a significant boost in visitors.

What this means for Google reputation I don’t know and they are certainly risking alienating webmasters if they continue to penalise quality websites. We all want to see splogs and scraper sites with PR scores of 5+ a thing of the past but to target legitimate websites in this manner seems a little harsh to say the least.