SEL: Google PageRank is for Entertainment Purposes Only?

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December 02, 2004

Google PageRank is for Entertainment Purposes Only?

Barry Schwartz reports that Google is telling toolbar users that the PageRank displayed is for "entertainment purposes only" and is not the same PageRank that it uses in its algorithm.

Here's the text from Google...

The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only. Due to repeated attempts by hackers to access this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequently because is it not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is several months old.

If the toolbar is showing a PR of zero, this is because the user is visiting a new URL that hasn’t been updated in the last update. The PR that is displayed by the Google Toolbar is not the same PR that is used to rank the webpage results so there is no need to be concerned if your PR is displayed as zero. If a site is showing up in the search results, it doesn’t not have a real PR of zero, the Toolbar is just out of date.

So is PageRank broken?

Update: Danny has unofficial word to the contrary.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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