Page rank changes for June 2009 left unchanged 58 percent of 165 dofollow blogs. But 40 or 24 percent lost Page rank while another 29 or 18 percent gained Page rank.
This post includes a table that shows changes in Page Ranks for 170 dofollow blogs between March and January 2009. It also discusses the most important changes.
Google’s quarterly Page rank changes garner lots of attention and some apprehension.
Page Rank Changes
Introduction
Many online business owners fear that a loss in Page rank equals lost visitors. Others contend that Page rank does not equate to search engine rankings, but merely reflect popularity by linkbacks. However, because linkbacks are considered in search engine rankings, I think both are right.
A rise in Page rank doesn’t mean business success, and a drop doesn’t mean business failure. But Page rank does affect search engine rankings so they are important.
I’ve heard lots of complaining about the January 2009 Page ranks. Many people claim that they unjustly lost Page rank. So I set out to test that claim by looking at the numbers of percentages of dofollow blogs’ Page ranks that changed between July 2008 and January 2009.
This study notes changes in Page rank for 171 dofollow blogs during that time.
Page Rank Changes
Method
Originally 200 dofollow blogs were selected from dofollow blog directories during August 2008. Their url and Page ranks at that time were recorded.
For this study, each blog was revisited and Page rank was checked again using the Google toolbar on the front page of each blog. New Page ranks and the difference between the first recorded and the present Page rank were noted.
During January 25, 26 and 27, all blogs from the list were visited. Page rank was checked again as described above. Blogs were removed for the following reasons:
After copying the url into the Google search window, a 404 or “not found” message appeared. This was noted. Then the url was checked again after all urls had been checked once. If the message appeared again, the url was removed from the list.
If a site appeared to be a site without a blog, it was removed from the list.
When visiting a blog, a comment was left telling the blog owner of this list and asking each to check the information. Those reporting that their blogs were nofollow or asking to be removed from the list were.
After blogs were removed from the list, 171 dofollow blogs of the original 200 remained. For each, the first Page rank (PR1) was recorded, then the new Page rank (PR2) and the difference (D) between the two were recorded. The date of the most recent blog post was also noted for each blog.
Obvious, non-blog sites were eliminated from the first 200 dofollow blogs listed. You can see the complete list at Dofollow Blogs.
Page Rank Changes
Results
The table above provides the original Page ranks across the top with each column representing blogs with that original Page rank. Changes from original Page ranks and January 2009 Page ranks are provided down the left side, with each row indicating the number of blogs by Page rank with the same changes.
For example, most (78 or 46%) of blogs did not change Page rank. No change is represented by D0. The most common change (41 or 24%) was to loose one point. This is represented by D-1. The next most common change (22 or 13%) was to loose two Page rank points.
Some blogs lost three (8 or 5%), four (3 or 2%) or five (1 or .5%) points. The one blog loosing five points was ranked a 5 and is now ranked a 0. All those loosing four points were ranked a 4. So they too now have Page ranks of 0. Half of those loosing three points were ranked 4 and have new rankings of 1. The other half were ranked 3 and are now ranked 0.
A total of 75 (44%) blogs lost Page rank with the January update. Another two that were originally ranked 2 are now reported as “no page rank available.” If they are added, those loosing Page rank number 77 and account for 45 percent of all blogs in this study.
But some blogs did increase their Page ranks. Thirteen (8%) increased by one point. These 13 blogs ranged from original PR1 to PR4. Only three (2%) blogs increased Page rank by two points. They were all originally ranked PR2 and now are ranked PR4.
Page Rank Changes
Conclusion
Because I had not kept track of Page rank changes for prior Google updates, I cannot state that more blogs lost rank during this update than during prior updates.
Furthermore, all blogs included in this study are dofollow blogs. It’s possible that dofollow blogs were treated differently than nofollow blogs. One commenter on the page listing the dofollow blogs contends that Google punishes dofollow blogs. I don’t have data to support or deny that contention.
Although I did note the last post on each blog, Page rank doesn’t supposedly deal with internal content quality. So the frequency of posts should have no effect on Page rank.
It would be interesting to test whether the drop in Page rank results in a drop in search engine rankings, but without prior rankings and knowing the keywords for each blog that test isn’t possible.
So this study is just a description of what happened to Page rankings of selected blogs during the January 2009 update. But it does provide a benchmark for comparing other updates.
Linda holds a Doctorate in Education (Ed.D.) and is accredited in Public Relations (APR). She has practiced marketing, public relations and communication skills for over 30 years. She is President of Best Books Plus, Inc., an online and off line publishing company.
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