UPDATE: It turns out Pagerank is not dead after all. Google has simply updated the URL which is used to query it, which has caused various toolbars and websites to stop reporting the number. Dave Naylor spotted the update and has subsequently updated his own tool, which is now once again reporting PR accurately. The original article was as follows…
If the words Search Engine Optimisation don’t mean anything to you, look away now.
Google appears to have disabled the display of PageRank on browser toolbars and online ranking checkers. Toolbar plugins, such as SEOQuake and SEOBook, which had been displaying the Google PageRank for the site being viewed are now showing as either N/A or 0.
On Twitter, the majority of people in the industry rejoiced the seeming end of Google’s Toolbar PageRank display. Since its first appearance several years ago it has been used, arguably more than it should have been, as a way of determining the quality of a website.
Scott_McLay: Well it looks like TBPR is dead – woohoo no more confusion over its importance
The PageRank which was visible on the Google Toolbar was always out-dated with that which Google actually used in their calculations for determining where sites should rank in the SERPs. The last confirmed roll-out of Toolbar PageRank was June 27th, 2011. Although many smaller updates had taken place, in particular for new websites and those which had been redirected from others.
Presumably those who still made heavy use of PageRank – mostly link sellers or SEO agencies who didn’t know better – will now presumably turn to MozRank, a website authority rating by SEOMoz.
It may not be completely the end of the story for Toolbar PageRank, however, as some on Twitter reported they could still see PR.
KevStrong: To all the peeps saying that PR is showing as 0 – Mine works fine on Firefox 4.01 but my custom built PHP PR checker does not.
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52 Comments
…and thousands of webmasters screamed “WHAT?!” as Google didn’t say a thing about this change ;)
I dont understand.
Well it was time for such a useless methric to be removed, at the last update low quality websites get high pr, now everything is over, welcome the the new SEO world.
That is an incredible statement from a man who owns a website which, in the opening sentence, states:
“If a web page that’s obtaining top quality inbound links from high PR websites, the greater the possibility they have of positioning better in the search engines results.”
Peter, you cannot say that getting a link from high PR compared to a low one (from the same semantic and content) does not give more benefit… PR is the base of Google Algorithm.
And I’m pretty sure that you with have the reflex to check it on websites ;)
Of course I can. You can have a PR 5 site that only has one, irrelevant, backlink, and a PR 3 website that has 100 relevant backlinks.
I know which link I’d rather have.
Yes still other methods to check the value in your link building or competition
but why there is no news from google about their pagerank disable?
Finally.. No worries about thinking about getting a High PR for our websites or blogs. At least, now we can focus on Quality Content, that will attract advertisers. :)
You ALWAYS have to focus on quality content :)
Sorry, but on IE the google toolbar still shows pagerank… I don’t believe this article, PR is way to important for Google..
Good to hear that Pagerank is still alive as it motivates me to do more for my blog.
I can’t believe ppl still think PR matters. For all the zealots explain why a PR0 site can out-rank PR6 sites…etc…etc in highly competitve niches?
I suppose beating the PR drum is just a marketing exercise to garnish another blog post – if newbies heads were filled with enough garbarge already.
See Here on a Quick Fix, the servers were moved on google.
http://www.bighitmedia.co.uk/google-page-rank-fix/
tnx 4 this post, in google .co .il we havent seen this “dead pr”
i guss it will happen soon:)
Nothing useful ever dies when it is supposed to, and nothing useless dies fast enough. I got tired of chasing PR a long time ago.
Really nice to see all these comments from all over the world. I must say that “Granny” from the Netherlands is mostly on Peter’s side.
regards OMA,
http://www.twitter.com/OMAlkmaar
PS Granny is OMA in Dutch and OMA stans for Online Marketing Alkmaar ;-)
Thank god for that! I’d spent quite a bit of time ironing out some onpage tweaks to get my PR up, which did the trick on last update. Don’t want that hard work going to waste!
It already has.
Why has the work already been wasted?
Well, kinda glad it is not dead. Amazing how much panic there was at the thought of that. Cheer up guys. PageRank is alive.
My site has pr3 and today, it’s gone. it was like the big G give a big F, man. Hope it’ll be fine.
I personally think that PR has always been a good indicator of authority. SEO “experts” that claim it has an impact on where you rank for certain keywords really don’t know what they are talking about. PR is about trust, which doesn’t mean that your PR6 site is going to outrank my PR0 site if I have a better linking strategy, more traffic and better On-Page.
Let’s be clear about the difference, people: PR is a good thing, but not for the reasons that you might think, and it has little to do with SEO.
Use your heads. Google is logical.
and why does no one show the link to the new location?
I mean if this is a fact, then why does no one know the new location?
That would prove this is not just an assumption that pr is not dead.
I was still able to check page rank of facebook via PR checker online. But the problem is toolbar was showing that facebook has no page rank at all, how insane.!!!!
Now got the whole thing. The toolbar are going to be updated I think.
I was happy to see the update at the top of this page! Thank god the SEO community is on the ball!
Thanks for clearing this up. I figured google wouldn’t just do away with PR.
Google keeps trying to mix things up, which keeps everybody on their toes! We figure out how to manipulate a pages value, they come up with a way to level the playing field again. What an industry, it reminds me of the 80′s and software copy protection!
I was checking everywhere about this problem thinking that something is wrong with my system, well thanks for clearing it up. But any idea when is this Pagerank issue going to be resolved?
The New URL Is This -
http://toolbarqueries.google.com/tbr?client=navclient-auto&features=Rank&ch=SITECHECKSUM&q=info:SITENAME.com
Enjoy the free pagerank checking tool… it works fine
you haven’t mentioned where its working now? which service?
Mine still have pr 3! Huray! :)
Here is a fix on how to update Google PageRank for SeoQuake toolbar and more will follow:
http://www.mmncs.com/2011/10/seoquake-google-pagerank-update-fix-tips-tricks-lifehack-page-rank/
Updated code can be found here:
https://github.com/phurix/pagerank/
It seems there are no pagerank updates.
Hey everybody,
I got my page rank tool bar on SEO quake again after i found a code awhile ago. I think it only work for SEO quake only coz my other SEO Tool still display N/A to it.
I dont want to paste the code here coz I want to give where credit is due. Just visit this website and scroll down below and you’ll find the code.
http://www.mmncs.com/2011/10/seoquake-google-pagerank-update-fix-tips-tricks-lifehack-page-rank/#comment-2091
Why worry about pagerank, you only get depressed when it goes down a rank…
I hoped “the killing” would not have happened a long time and Google will soon allow the Ranking tool to show off the Google PR checker tool.
Yeah, it can be check the pagerank by google toolbar.
I also panicked that when i saw that my page rank has dis-appeared. First I thought that it might be due to out dated version of the toolbar but later I realized that It is wide spread. Besides Moz which tools can be used to see page rank?
Weew! This give me a little relief on what is happening. I was wondering also why my SEO Quake Toolbar can’t checked the PR of my websites. I just hope that Big G won’t really kill the PR scores.
What do you think ? If i wait and dont do anythink do you think Seo Quake and Search Status addons will start working corect on firefox ?
Google Pagerank is off since many days. Do you think it come back?
In my script i set this:
$url = “http://toolbarqueries.google.com/tbr?client=navclient-auto&features=Rank&ch=8f3b58e04&q=$url”;
but its still not working
Be comfortable in a short-term event.
No, the PageRank IS DEAD.
They changed not only the endpoint, they also changed the checksum algorithm.
I tested many recent classes each one with a new checksum algorithm, but none of them works.
I got the n/a result for every type of request.
This is Google. It likes becoming useful, and the stream of users get greater and greater, as far as its services become a virtual highway.
The day it wants to close the door, everybody becomes aware of the addiction it created.
The Php class form James Wade work perfectly.
After doing some digging I found that the Google Toolbar still displays PageRank just fine. Unfortunately, as a Firefox user I could not install the plugin (it is supported through Firefox 4.0, the current version is 7.01). I tinkered around a bit and found a way to trick Firefox into letting you use the Google Toolbar after all! I wrote up a short guide on how I did it, since I could not find the info anywhere else online: http://www.landofjacks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=76
Hope this helps some of you, I know I was going nuts not being able to check PR quickly and easily.
Long live the PR, the best way to measure :-)
Couldn’t agree more, i always measure with PR :)
I use little tools to check PR of any site.