Pagerank for milanin.com- PR=6 but MSN says we worth zero :)
I was checking recently the pagerank of milanin.com web site, just to be sure it has not decreased with the recent google's page rank story, and found that our PR is quite good, PR=6.
And just another thing- MSN is still not our good friend as Google and Yahoo ;)
It's for sure we'll need to take care also about MSN in the near future!
Interesting data, but unfortunately not too useful without a lot of detailed analysis... let's consider why:
1) Indexed pages: the number of indexed pages is not an indicator of quality. Indexed pages may be duplicates (due to domain and/or url parameter issues) or obsolete, pages which no longer exist. I would only be concerned if the number is very low. In the case of Windows live, I currently see "2.840 risultati" for the domain milanin.com .
2) Backlinks. Google's back link tool is notoriously inaccurate and thus, deceitful. They should either "fix" it or remove it. The number reported by Google is thus not useful. The data reported by Yahoo is very interesting, but again, quantity does not mean quality. The exact data needs to be interpreted. Many links do not aid site visibility - they are ignored by search engines. Microsoft stopped reporting backlinks several months ago. So the number 0 is accurate in so far that data is not publicly available from Microsoft. This should change, at least for your own site(s), in the near future. Alexa only shows a subset of links they are aware of; the selection is based on actual Alexa toolbar users using the links, not on the mere presence of a link - so you might consider their backlinks to be of a certain "quality" BUT only within the very limited community of Alexa toolbar users. More on this in point 4 below.
3) Google Page Rank. What you see in the toolbar is only updated every 3-6 months. It is NOT what Google may or may not use internally to decide which pages best respond to a user's query. Even the internal page rank is only one of over 100 factors which determine search results. The toolbar ranking probably serves to encourage people to provide Google data on surfing behavior and to discourage websites from selling links. No more, no less.
4) Traffic rankings: there are no reliable external sources of site traffic information. The Alexa traffic ranking is basically worthless. For more on this topic, see my article "Are we still lying with statistics in the internet age?" ( http://www.antezeta.com/blog/web-statistics/ ).
Posted by Sean Carlos on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 10:43
Thank you Sean for your detailed explanations! ;) My goal for this article was a much smaller- just to show that MSN says we worth zero :(, and that the current PR of milanin.com web site remains PR=6 and does not go down :), as some other web masters have noted recently.
about the detailed analysis- I dig deeply on it time to time. Of course the picture I've posted is just the picture...
btw what do you think about the rumors that Google is changing their algorithms for PR calculation? What are the categories of web sites that could be affected from your point of view?
Posted by Andrey Golub on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 10:52
Andrey,
Their "calculator" for MSN is broken, it even shows MSN==zero for the microsoft domains.
Posted by Michael on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:16
Microsoft says that 2840 pages from MilanIn are indexed, as I noted above. Thus, Milanin is not worth 0 to MSN/Live. The real problem is that very few people use MSN/Live, making the issue somewhat irrelevant.
As for Google's PR algorithm changes, Google algorithm changes are a constant. Google provides great advice on this: rather than focusing too much on changes, focus on building and improving a great website which serves end users; the work you, Michael and others do to continually improve MilanIn's web presence is a great example of this.
The current SEO chatter is about Google penalties for paid links. No surprise here: paid links are Google's main business. Google has been warning site owners about this issue for a while now. Yet again, is there really a correlation between toolbar page rank and page ranking? I wouldn't bet too much on it.
Posted by Sean Carlos on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:26
Michael it's a VERY good news for us and for my MSN friends I was already writing an angry message to ;)
thank you for the further dig!
Posted by Andrey Golub on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:29
Sean,
thank you for the next comment also! About the payed links- I noted that PR of some two web sites I know very well the owners of, has decreased, but I know for sure they did never use payed links to improve their PageRank... So there is something else I think...
one another thing- you always say about "toolbar page", but I do not do any "toolbar" checking, I use different methods.
What's your professional advice to measure Google-PR of a Web Site that's the most reliable from your point of view?
btw, guys- Sean, Michael, do not you find we're WORKING at this moment, since we're all IT Team of Milan-IN and we discuss an important topic for the life of our Club! ;) so it's the "Team Working 2.0" of Milan-IN, and I am very happy about that.
Posted by Andrey Golub on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:34
hm....
do not you find we're WORKING at this moment
well ... if you mean this chatting on your blog - no, I don't find it "working" for me
But anyway, I am glad you are happy about it
Posted by Michael on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:38
Public Google "Page Rank" data is only available in the toolbar (or a third party interface to the toolbar data, but the data is from the same source) and in aggregated form in the Google Webmaster dashboard.
Sites may show fluctuating data (sometimes PR 5, sometimes PR 6) as multiple Google data centers may non have synchronized PR data.
Posted by Sean Carlos on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:43
I did not give any opinion yet about page ranking, but if you want one, I'd say it is mostly worthless. That is, it inaccurate and does not reflect the really achieved objectives.
The only use of it IMO is to see how well SEs can index your pages.
Posted by Michael on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:51
About Team Working 2.0:
Michael, it means "working" for me, since it's a brainstorming about an important for the Club issue.
Working is not always doing something by hands, but also brainstorming is one of the factors that determine the success of a project.
well it's not important, the discussion is about Google PageRanking not about us ;)
thank you for your opinion however!
Posted by Andrey Golub on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 12:02
Sean,
> as multiple Google data centers may non have synchronized PR data
Our Google PageRanking equals to 6 for more than 6 months at least, so I think we do not risk to be measured differently by some different data centers of Google.
btw lots of the latest "fan with google" stories here in my Blog demonstrate that our site is really well positioned with Google, so no doubts that the PR=6 reflects our current state of SEO efforts ;)
Posted by Andrey Golub on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 12:08
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