Google Quietly Drops PageRank From Webmaster Tools
Oct 15, 2009 at 10:22am ET by Barry Schwartz
My piece this morning, Google Removes PageRank Data From Webmaster Tools from the Search Engine Roundtable has sparked a lot of discussion on Twitter. Google had indeed removed the PageRank statistics from Google Webmaster Tools. I believe it was removed when Google released the Webmaster Tools Labs features earlier this week. PageRank being pulled from the crawl stats, has gone mostly unnoticed until I wrote about it this morning.
Susan Moskwa from the Google Webmaster Central team explained it was removed because Google keeps telling webmasters “that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much.” They felt it was “silly” to keep telling webmasters that, and at the same time show it in Webmaster Tools. So Google removed it from Webmaster Tools. I think this is a good thing, since I agree it is obsessed over too much, plus what Google showed in Webmaster Tools was not very useful to webmasters.
But I really think Google has to take a stronger stance, if they indeed want webmasters to not obsess over the score. At one point back in 2007, Google asked webmasters about removing PageRank from the Google Toolbar for this exact reason. The conversation and discussion ultimately died with no recourse from Google. I personally would like to see Google remove the PageRank score from the Toolbar as well. Yes, the Toolbar shows page by page PageRank score, but we all know that Google shows out dated PageRank data in the Toolbar, plus it is often buggy.
I think, Google should either make the data accurate or remove it – just like they did in Webmaster Tools.
For more about PageRank, see our article named What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters.
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Are you sure they didn’t drop it because it was a worthless report. I think their product department was just trying to provide more useful information that was requested more.
I just want to know why they removed the full query stats report. That one used to give you the page url, the search phrase used to generate an impression, the average position, and the same for the clicks. It was the best part of their tool, and they dropped it.
Premium member since 01/2009
I’m just glad I stopped obsessing on pagerank (went cold turkey in 2007) so showing vs not showing doesn’t matter much. I still find myself peeking at the toolbar at times, but nothing like in the “old” days. Nice find Barry.
Now if we can get the to do the same with the Toolbar, life will be grand.
I’m sure we’ll see it back soon…it normally disappears from the console just before a big update….
I have to admit I am a relatively new blogger and I have been watching my page rank a little bit more than I should probably. It is probably cause I am new, but maybe it isn’t that important. I feel that as long as I keep creating quality posts traffic will build and I will get readers.
Thanks for the information!
jim
I’ve never been that conserned about pagerank, yes OK, it may look good. However, within my blog not all my posts have a rank, but some of those post get more traffic than the ones with a rank.
Thanks of the info Barry
It could be that I haven’t had my morning coffee but… it seems to me that obsessing over PageRank scores falls right in there with obsessing over the number of Friends/Followers on social networking websites. In most cases, the obsession is a misguided focus. I believe Google and most in the know tried to get that message across but to no avail so for the betterment of the community as a whole they removed the tool.