Edit: I have noticed that my Entrepreneur.com blog is still showing a page rank of 0. I believe we have not seen the end of this Google “update” – especially because there are no reported increases at all across the board. All I can say is brace yourself for whatever is next.
As many of you probably already read today, several of my peers and mentors were slapped by Google today with significantly lowered page ranks – as much as from a PR7 down to a PR4 in some cases.
Andy Beard and Daniel Scocco are providing ongoing coverage of the sites taking a hit. And it’s not just popular blogs – even the Washington Post and Forbes.com have gone from PR7 down to PR5.
The good news? Everyone seems to be reporting the same or more traffic from Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
I was at a PR5 yesterday. I’m still at a PR5 today. I’d like to point to the things I did differently than people like Darren, Brian, and even the team over at BlogHerald – but I really have no clue. I believe we all have focused on bringing quality, relevant content to our audience and have always put the reader experience first before revenue. I believe we have all sold links at some point (though I turned down a cool $1000 for some text link advertising in August because of my Google fears…).
Theories are everywhere – some suggest the fact that being part of a blog network has hurt some of the sites, or perhaps that the incoming links are being devalued.
Frankly, I’ve been rather tight-lipped on the whole subject, mostly because I am not at a point in my business in which I can afford to rock the Google boat. I guess you can say that their scare tactics have worked on me – and I feel rather sad about that.
At the same time, I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t understand Google, algorithms, nor could I pull off anything black hat if my life depended on it. I’m certainly not implying that anyone who has been hit is engaging in black hat tactics – far from it. I’m just saying that my level of SEO knowledge, though pretty advanced for my audience (work at home parents) is far less than that of my peers in this industry.
Perhaps it’s my relatively simplistic SEO implementation that has helped me skirt under the radar?
I’d really love to hear what you think about the issue:
Do you think Google is doing the best thing for their own users?
How could this be hurting their users?
How could it help?
And what are your predictions about Google’s intentions? Why do you think they are doing this and where do you think they are headed now that they have taken steps down a road that is certain to make quite a few (large and small) businesses angry?
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