The infamous Google PageRank was once the standard for website authority, but as of 2009 it is SEO history. The PageRank was once the go to standard for websites authority, but it was frequently manipulated by link sellers gaining money from website owners who wanted a quick boost in rankings.
Why PageRank Was A Thing?
When PageRank began, it wasn’t always a negative, however it all went wrong for the web in 2000. When Google released that the first version of its Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer was one of the many things that made using the web easier to search though Google directly from within Internet Explorer.
The toolbar also gave web users the choice to enable the PageRank meter, this was to see the PageRank score of any page they were viewing. PageRank was very simple, the aim of the game was the greener the PageRank bar the more important Google sees your page.
Once you hovered over the meter, you were given a simple line of text with a score that goes from 0 to 10 in which case most people that used Google’s Toolbar had probably never gone through the effort of ever enabling the PageRank meter.
Google had gave the option for their own benefit and that was to get a clear judgement on what pages were good and pages that needed more attention.
Link Spam In 2000.
In the early days of Google, the link spam began almost instantly.
Once people realised that chasing higher PageRank scores could move a site in rankings, it was clear that dropping links wherever they could would rapidly increase placements, this includes blog posts, forums and directories.
It soon became an issue to the extent that people were demanding that Google should do something. Google finally realised in 2005, that getting behind the still used no follow tag, this was and still is a way to prevent links from passing along PageRank credit.
Why Google removed page rank?
Google removed PageRank to solve a huge problem that site owners experienced in 2008.
The issue started because of the switch between http and https. They were losing their legacy PageRank from http, since it would not transfer over to the https URL.
And yes, some site owners were citing “loss of PageRank” – even though it was only the visible PageRank – as a reason to not switch sites to the secure https.
What Happens With PageRank Now?
After a decade of growth Google launched their own browser: Chrome; this came with its own search from the address bar built-in. This left real little reasons for the Google Toolbar to exist.
PageRank had made more errors with the toolbar and took yet more blows, as Firefox dropped in 2011. Google then took 10 months in 2013 to update its system for the PageRank scores and it was feeding the toolbar for all Internet Explorer users.
Google hasn’t and possibly won’t ever update the PageRank scores for obvious reasons because it was such a huge issue before.
