Google have Updated Page Rank in Secret

Nov 17, 2008 Author: Matt Ridout | Filed under: Internet News, seo

As any subscribers of my blog realise I am always keen to be on top of Page Rank updates, it’s an interest and benchmarking process more than anything. To my surprise I have discovered Google have updated their toolbar page rank as recently as early November 2009 and no-one has noticed.

So far in 2008 there have been 5 exports to the Google toolbar, far more than any previous years. Dates of the previous updates are below:

11/01/08
29/02/08
29/04/08
25/07/08
28/09/08

During these dates all pages within a domain would have each individual page updated with toolbar visible page rank. However I have seen pages, including my own which have been updated within the last week. This is also not an isolated incident – SEOMOZ also has pages updated.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/differential-diagnosis-a-broken-website-ranking-atop-google - this post was created on the 8th of November but is showing a PR 0, not a usual N/A.

See another example below:

Page Rank Update

However not all pages on every website seem to be experiencing this. I have many blogs and some posts which I consider to be more valuable still have no PR, even though they are older and have more backlinks.

So, what is this update? Throughout my own network of sites I have seen a slight trend and would really appreciate some other SEO’s and webmasters feedback and results on this.

1.    I have noticed Page Rank updates on blog posts that have no external links in the content
2.    I have noticed Page Rank updates on newer posts but less backlinks
3.    I have noticed Page Rank updates on “trusted sites” on posts only a week old with external links
4.    I have noticed Page rank updates on new blog posts for the past 3 weeks consecutively

Obviously we are all aware that Page Rank is something that Google wants to distance themselves from i.e. removing the mention in the toolbar download. However perhaps this is a new visible algorithm change for Google?

I would love to hear your thought’s people!

6 Comments

How to get a text link on Google

Oct 20, 2008 Author: Matt Ridout | Filed under: Internet News, Search Engines, seo

So someone revealed to me today how to get a fully followed text link on Google, yes you heard correctly - Google! If you look at Google’s Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant (WOAC) Program they explain how you can become a partner, with the partnership you get a PR 6 text link from Google which must have a serious amount of trust associated to it.

Your link will appear on the Google’s Website Optimizer Partners page which is 100% followed asnd juicy! What’s the catch I hear you say? Well there is a criteria to follow which includes (the following taken from Google’s Website):

Have designed and implemented at least 3 verifiable and successful Website Optimizer experiments with 3 different referenceable clients. Please include client contact info, description of experiments, and screen shots of reports.
Incorporated and in business for at least 2 years.
Proven background in marketing. Please list any speaking engagements at conferences, influential blogs, white papers, management bios, ad campaigns, marketing programs, and/or other evidence demonstrating your expertise with testing and your ability to evangelize testing.
Currently providing a range of service options including setup, training, and consultation for Google Website Optimizer. Please list your current Website Optimizer services and the approximate prices charged.
Website content linked from your home page that prominently and exclusively describes your Google Website Optimizer services (please provide a link).
Willing to attend and pass Google Website Optimizer technical training sessions (in English) at a Google office. Sessions usually last a few days and are held once per year in Mountain View, CA, USA.
Able to commit to providing detailed product and market feedback on a quarterly basis. Please provide a sample of this feedback by identifying top 3 client objections to Website Optimizer, top bugs you’d like fixed, and top 3 new features you’d like to see.
Have US$1M Professional Indemnity/Liability insurance.
Able to commit to launching a minimum of 3 Website Optimizer experiments per quarter.

A bit of a hasstle for a link but if you work for a larger agency, this is entirely possible and achievable.

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Top 5 SEO Blogs Ever

Jul 18, 2008 Author: Matt Ridout | Filed under: Internet Fun, Internet News, Search Engines, seo

Over the last eighteen months there has been an abundance of SEO (including mine), most provide informative and insightful SEO guides, tips and strategies. I have also come across many that have good intentions but offer very little value to other search marketers and often posts can be misleading to newcomers to the industry.

There are however a select few that continue to provide quality content on a weekly basis that I believe should be on every SEO’s RSS subscription.

1. SEOMOZ

seomoz logo

SEOMOZ are an SEO company based in Seattle in the US and have become an anchor in the SEO industry. The leader of the pack so to speak would be Rand Fishkin who has continued to create great post content. The site offers a selection of free SEO tools to assist with analysis and they offer a members area which contains even more. Altogether I cannot find a better SEO blog out there, it’s that simple. I suggest you visit them immediately and start learning or touching up on your SEO skills.

SEOMOZ blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/seomoz

2. Search Engine People

Search Engine People Logo

Search Engine People are a Canadian based SEO company that have another fabulous blog that every SEO should be subscribed to. At the forefront of the great insights is Jeff Quipp. It’s strategy in this blog that I find most important, proven methods in dealing with the different scenarios of internet marketing, it’s bloody good dust I tell you.

Search Engine People blog feed: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/feed/

3. Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land is great for a number of reasons but what I like is when technical information or data comes up in posts that it’s always written in a way that is understandable to almost anyone, really great writing styles. The most recognizable character on the team would have to be Danny Sullivan the man who brought us our beloved Sphinn. They always deliver great quality and is a must for every SEO!

Search Engine Land’s blog feed: http://feeds.searchengineland.com/searchengineland

4. Search Engine Journal

Search Engine Journal has a selection of very good blog authors, I tend to get the most value from Ann Smarty, and her posts are so detailed there’s never a short read! They provide insights and links to great tools and content that as an SEO you just can’t ignore.

Search Engine Journals blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SearchEngineJournal

5. Seo Scientist

Seo Scientist logo

A lot of other SEO’s would probably argue that there are more deserving SEO blogs to get this number 5 spot. Branko Rihtman is the author of this absolutely fantastic blog. As the name might suggest these blog posts are based around the inner workings of search engine behaviors, with extremely detailed posts and data to back up findings. The frequency of the posts is far less than others but when content is posted you can guarantee you will learn at least 1 new piece of information.

SEA Scientist’s blog feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SeoScientist

Honourable mentions and still recommend signing up to their feeds:

4 Comments

Name and Shame Secret Cloaking Website

Jun 20, 2008 Author: Matt Ridout | Filed under: Internet News

Just over a month ago I decided to start looking at click tracking using heat maps. Heat maps track the mouse movements and clicks on a page which can help with usability. I found a free one here http://www.labsmedia.com/clickheat/index.html by someones recommendation. The install was easy and the data started pouring in. Now I kept this running for a good month before deciding to remove the code from my site. The data was useful and I was grateful to the site by providing good content - right? Well not at all unfortunatly, as I decided to look at the code “through the eyes of a search engine” using SEO Browser I noticed something odd.

Secret cloaking code

As you can see there was a link appearing to the search engines, now sometimes I get a bit of flack for having a short term memory but I would remember adding a link at the top of my own blog right? So to investigate further I looked at the site, no visible text.

So I obviously checked the source code too, nothing visible either.

So looking at the source through Plesk I located the header file for the blog where I had originally included the tracking code and to my surprise a little piece of code had appeared!

This was swiftly deleted with stern presses of my keyboard. I looked at other websites I had once used this tracking for and sure enough a succession of hidden links popped up, most IT related or Russian links.

I do warn people not to use these guys at all costs. I consider myself lucky that I wasn’t penalized by the search engines for this even though it was not my fault. I think I was more annoyed that I had been leaking link juice to these random websites for a period of time!

The other side of the coin suggests this method is obviously working for them and it was not detected by Google at all - guess the guys at the “Big G” should download a copy and try it out lol!

5 Comments

Past Google Page Rank Updates

Jun 17, 2008 Author: Matt Ridout | Filed under: Internet News, seo

I have been seeing a lot of people arguing about when certain updates have happened (more to the point page rank). So I decided to share my data with my readers to help clear up any confusion.

06/06/2007

20/10/2007

11/01/2008

29/02/2008

29/04/2008

The dates have been collected every time Google updates their page rank - data centers tend to go down a week before an update and a backlink update also occurs before a PR update.

If I was to hazard a guess I would say the 4th PR update of 2008 will happen at the end of June 2008