What Should Google Do About PR In The Toolbar?

[krisval]

Moderator note: See also Google Toolbar PR Meter Gray Across The Web for news of how PR ratings disappeared for a short time in the Google Toolbar, causing panic among some site owners over a long holiday weekend in the US and UK.

Poll to find opinions about how Google should reflect PR in the toolbar.

[2003m2003]

How about adding option.

5. Yes, but keep PR only for the ranking

[jan]

6. only for decoration.

[robwatts]

I voted for scrapping it. Its skewed the web far too much already..although I must concede, I do have a sentimental attachment to it.

Has anyone ever seen a termite nest erupt in Africa?

Big huge things that on moonlit nights, once yearly I think, produce a huge swarm of winged younglings off to start new colonies..

Ahem..what Im saying is, it would be cool if once a year for say an hour or two sites via the toolbar suddenly showed their google worth...imagine that?

Ok, yes, its late, Ive got a plane to meet, too much caffeine maybe.

[theRealAirness]

I think it is on the way out. That's the theme of the google guys at the last SES 2005 at New York. They said not to worry about pagerank too much. Don't go crazy. There are other search engines. If you build a good and interesting websites, traffic will come automatically. It looks as if it is taking too much resources to do page rank of each websites. And, it is getting out of hand.

So, this could mean that it is on the way out.

[Marketing Guy]

TB PR has been largely irrelevant for ages, but I still like seeing the little green bar! I've always considered it more of a consequence of IBL performance rather than a factor in ranking.

I suppose there is an argument to remove it - there are so many newbies out there looking to buy high PR links because PR has been so hyped. But I vote to keep it (for decoration!) and update it reasonably frequently.

MG

[Mopatop]

How about another option - "No, I like the Toolbar PR, leave it the hell alone" ?

[sootledir]

Go ahead and remove it. It's a lie. It's at least 90 days out of date, plus it's not the same value that's used internally at Google.

They would be idiots to remove it. It doesn't cost them much and it's been suckering webmasters for years into caring what Google "thinks" about a webpage.

[Chris_D]

7. Donate it to charity.

[Relevancy]

The one thing the PageRank rating does determine is the domain age and value. If you are buying domains or looking to take over a site, PR along with waybackmachine.org will tell you how valuable and how powerful a domain can be. Well aged and untarnished domains can be monsters.

[mcanerin]

The one thing the PageRank rating does determine is the domain age and value.

I disagree. The only connection age has is that it takes a while for PR to show up - the amount of PR is not directly related to the age of the site. There are sites that have been around for years with little PR, and others that have been around for less than a year with huge PR.

Additionally, there are many cases of sites with high PR this month and none the next - but the sites "value" did not change - only the PR.

PR only affects the price of a site (or links on a site) for people who only buy based on PR. But that's not value, that's cost. There is a difference.

Ian

[Relevancy]

I meant it is a part of the process for determining the value of a domain. If it has good PR then you can look at the age then other factors. It is a good first indicator for a valuable domain.

[St0n3y]

well, it would be nice if it were an accurate measure of anything but since its not, burn it. Even if it was accurate I say burn it, but I think its just too good of a way to keep people Google-centric.

[rogerd]

I don't obsess about the PR of my sites (particularly with the seeming lag/inaccuracy issues), but, like others, I find it a quick datapoint if I'm looking at a site I'm not familiar with. It's one of the quick measures (along with another somewhat squirrely number, the Alexa ranking) that tells you a bit about the status of a site.

[Bernard]

I asked a similar question here before:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...read.php?t=929

Looks like the results are somewhat similar although this poll has had a greater response.

[jetmuzer]

I think remove PR from the Toolbar is impossible, only if replace it with another Ranking Method. Anyway, will remains enormous bases for spam, checked on PR and it'll selling everywhere. In fact, the collapse will not happen. Just become a little more expensive to start.

[beu]

I think PR is good information (as in not why you get out of bed every day) to have but, it should be more up to date so people don't go nuts over any little change.

Focus on the user, focus on rankings but don't focus on you PageRank o' meter.

Funny this question is still alive today as this thread is over 2 and 1/2 years old.