It’s been about 8 months since Google last pushed out a real update to their PageRank system. They don’t offer a PageRank toolbar for Chrome, and they dropped support of the tool bar for Firefox in 2011. The writing has been on the wall for some time, but the fact that Google is phasing out their PageRank system is even clearer today than ever. Matt Cutts, Google’s head of Search Engine Spam, responded to a tweet asking if there would be an update before 2014. His response, “I would be surprised if that happened.”
While this should come as no surprise to anyone who follows the actions of Google, it will still be quite a change when it is fully phased out. Many people use the PageRank to determine where they will build links, how much a site is worth when selling it and much more.
There are other alternatives to PageRank, such as the “TrustRank” and Yahoo’s Web Rank, but none of them have gotten wide spread acceptance at this point. The Internet community may eventually accept one of these alternatives, or they may just let the idea of a PageRank system die.
There is no real word on why Google is phrasing out the PageRank system. It has been very popular for many years, and it would seem it takes little effort to maintain it on Google’s end. The most likely reason is that the PageRank system is largely based on backlinks, which Google has been attempting to deemphasize for the past year or more.
What do you think about Google’s PageRank system? Will it get any more updates ever, or will they just let it die a quiet death.
