The Google Page Rank that happened this October is Google’s attack against websites that sell text links without using the hyped “nofollow” tag. Many large websites went from significant Page Rank to being stripped of their visible rankings. And that’s where Google stopped: visible rankings in form of Page Rank. Why did Google stop there and did not go even further to punish the actual rankings of those websites affected? There are probably several reasons. Maybe Google is just shooting a bullet close enough to push webmasters into the defense and they stop selling text links altogether. It’s like a warning to comply before they shoot again and then eventually hit where it really hurts. I doubt it though. Rather I think the following scenario might be true. Look around on the Internet and how many websites are selling text links in one form or the other. It’s not illegal to do so. The big guys do it and the small guys do it. Sometimes it is done to really pass on link juice and sometimes it is done as real advertising. Now look at the websites that lost their Page Rank and went from great to poor. Those websites affected include even big guys like Forbes.com and others. Now can you imagine Google pulling the actual search engine rankings on those guys? What would happen? Nobody will find Forbes.com on Google anymore. Forbes is a brand name. Forbes is a Top Tier provider of high quality content. Forbes is recognized across industries and carries a lot of trust and respect. Now take John Doe searching Google for something specific. In the past he found Forbes.com providing this content he was looking for, but now he does not find it anymore because Google punished Forbes.com and pulled their search engine rankings. John Doe heads over to Microsoft’s Live.com and does the same search and to his surprise Live.com provides the results he was hoping for: Forbes.com shows up high in Live.com. John heads over to Ask.com and searches again and Ask.com provides the information he is looking for: Forbes.com

What do you think would happen in that moment? John Doe is not stupid. He realizes Google.com is not providing good search results anymore and so he uses Live.com and Ask.com and Yahoo.com more often. Forbes is just a good example in this case. Many websites that were punished in this Google Page Rank update provide top notch high quality content. Now imagine that high quality content disappearing from Google (banned / punished), but still available on all the other search engines. To the outside this could make the impression that Google has lost its quality and is slowly moving towards becoming a second Altavista. Bad search results do not satisfy customers anymore and the search engine loyalty stops when SERPS are useless. Good-Bye Google could be heard more and more often. Ain’t gonna happen.

The guys in Mountain View are not stupid. They know exactly what is going on. They know the SEO community, webmasters and advertisers look at Page Rank as one measurement of how good and successful a website is. Google wants to pinch where it hurts – in the wallet of those who sell text links. They do not want to hurt their quality results and the normal visitor. Google might pick a few websites here and there to create the atmosphere of fear and pressure, but if they start punishing websites that provide high quality content they will shoot them self in the foot. Google would not only risk to present weak search results, they would also risk that these issues reach a larger audience. Bloggers and the media might hop on the running train and I think the last thing Google wants is to see this discussion in the mainstream media. Coca Cola did mess with the original Coke recipe and hit a major shit hole. The result was Coke Classic. Guess what – I don’t think Google wants a similar public experience. How easily could this PR stunt be associated with the failure of Google to filter out SPAM?! How easily could this fire back to Google if people get the feeling that the Google SERPS are dominated by marketers and that the “real” results cannot be provided by Google. That would be a marketing disaster …..! So, they pull the plug on Page Rank, but not on the search rankings. I highly doubt that we will see websites lose their rankings other than normal fluctuations. Let webmaster whine about Page Rank, but keep the mainstream visitor happy.