If you are an SEO and are not aware of Google’s latest PageRank Leg Drop, it may be time to hang up your keyboard.
Around the webmaster community, site after site was devalued, with many webmasters responding with “Well, our rankings didn’t drop, so what does it matter?” Well, it does, and here is why. I will begin with an analogy. If SEO were No Limit Hold’ Em, and Eric Ward were Doyle Brunson, then right now would be the Poker boom of 2004-2005.
(This next paragraph is a generalization, so please take it with a grain of salt.)
Swarms of SEOs are clamoring for top rankings, flooding forums with questions like “I lost my rankings, please help!” while their forum signature is a link to satellite equipment. The goal is to be Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, or Joseph Hachem. The mentality is “if Moneymaker did it, I can do it.” But this group values links solely on PageRank. That is their problem, and now a webmaster’s curse.
Google hit websites where it counted, in their pockets, because the PageRank fiends would be willing to spend a ‘C’ note on a sitewide link if the domain had a PageRank of 6. Now that it deflated to a 4, they would rather spend their money elsewhere.
Remember it is Google’s world, we’re just optimizing in it.
