The other day I was having a conversation with a tennis buddy of mine whose wife has a fitness blog. Her site receives about 30,000 pageviews a months. Not too shabby at all.
I mentioned I do some blogging too, and he asked me the address for my blog and I told him Financial Samurai. Given we were at our tennis club working on our laptops before playing a match that afternoon, he immediately looked my site up.
Here’s the first thing he said, “Nice site. I really need to work on personal finance. Oh…….. you’ve really got to work your PageRank up to a 5. That’s when good things happen and Google will really like you then.”
I was pretty surprised he mentioned PageRank given I haven’t read any articles from the SEO circus on PageRank in at least a year and a half. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough? I know we have the occasional PageRank discussion in the Yakezie forums from newer bloggers, but we definitely haven’t published any PageRank-related posts on Yakezie.com.
There once was a time when PageRank and MozRank were all the rage. Here’s a June 29, 2011 post I wrote here called, “Google Updates PageRank And The Yakezie Rises” as reference. Ahhh, the good old days! But now, unless I’m totally out of it, I don’t hear much about PageRank at all.
PAGERANK’S IMPORTANCE
Financial Samurai started in July 2009 and received its first PageRank of 2 or 3 six months later. A year and a half later, Financial Samurai’s PageRank jumped to 4. 10 months or so after that, FS’s PageRank jumped to 5. Then some time in what must have been mid-to-late 2013, Financial Samurai’s PageRank dropped to 4 where it is now. Yakezie.com currently has a PageRank of 5 with a fraction of FS’s traffic as reference.
Over the past five years we’ve experienced numerous Penguin and Panda updates. SEO consultants have had to scramble like crazy to undo the work they did to help their clients build links. Some people think Carnivals are bad. Other blogs have gone to PR 0 and never recovered. There’s been so much going on with Google’s search algorithm updates that it’s very hard to tell what’s really happening. All we know is that Google has a couple hundred variables that go into its search algorithm. To try and game the system is futile.
But pontificating on why such and such changed or happened although futile, is exactly what the SEO industry and bloggers like to do. Check out this post I wrote in September, 2012 asking whether SEO is a waste of time. In my opinion it is, beyond the basics. The time spent trying to do SEO could be better spent producing more good content.
A RISE IN TRAFFIC
I have no idea what determine’s a sites PageRank, nor do I do anything to try and improve my PageRank. All I do is publish content I think is interesting enough for other people to read and share.
One of the common things people have said is to not have as many outbound links from my site’s homepage. Well, if you visit FS you’ll see a gagillion outbound links given there are 20+ posts on the homepage with their own links. And then there’s a huge list of Top Commented Posts, all my categories, and my blog roll that needs updating. I’m clearly violating SEO recommended practices.
But I don’t really care because I want to sticky old posts which I think deserve attention, and I’m proud to showcase as many posts on my homepage as possible for new readers. There’s a greater chance that new readers will read other posts if I highlight them on my homepage. It’s only common sense. Readership is my #1 priority. Everything else is secondary.
Since going from a PR of 5 to a PR of 4, my PageViews have more than doubled from 7-10k a day. If there is a correlation with traffic and PageRank, then the correlation might be inverse! Let’s all shoot for a PR of 0 or 1! Just kidding obviously. But this brings me back to the post’s title: does PageRank still matter nowadays?
WHEN PAGERANK MATTERS
PageRank obviously matters when you’re chatting with your friend and s/he says “Ohhhhh….. you should try and get your PR up to 5.” In other words, it’s a vanity metric. It’s also a metric link buyers still use to survey which blogs they want to sell links to. But given the rise of Domain Authority, Page Authority, MozRank and other metrics, even using PR to determine blogs to link sell isn’t that great anymore. In fact, having a sub 3 PageRank is probably a good thing as you will be less tempted to blow yourself up and sell too many links on your site! You can concentrate on producing your own products or partnering with other affiliates instead.
But if you don’t sell links or link selling isn’t your primary way of making money, I don’t think PR matters at all so long as it is above 0. Sure, it’s nice to have as high a PR as possible. But what is most important is building your community and your traffic.
START A PROFITABLE BLOG TODAY
It’s been six years since I started Financial Samurai and I’m actually earning a good multiple six figure income stream online now. The top 1% of all posts on Financial Samurai generates 31% of all traffic, which makes much of my online earnings highly passive.
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom in your life, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. Hosting costs less than $5 a month.
The actions you take today help create your future. You never know where the journey will take you in 2016 and beyond!
Regards,
Sam
It’s the same when someone says “oh man, you paid $4000 for that camera and it has only 12 megapixels? Look at mine, $299 and 36 megapixels” :-)))
Haha, nice. I think it is an inherent desire for someone to “one-up” another.
Great article! Content has always been king so I’m sticking with that route, too.
I haven’t given much consideration to page rank or heard much about it. Google’s algorithm updates are frustrating but they have to stay a step ahead of people that are trying to game the system.
I would honestly just ignore it and just focus on content. If it happens, it happens. They are just vanity metrics.
I haven’t read anything about PR for ages. People do say though that DA is important. I’ve always approached this blogging thing as a writer: you write great, useful and entertaining articles and people read them. How do they find them> Well, there is ‘to be found’ (this is search engines and Google) and there is to be saught (this is reputation and usefulness). I’ll be ‘saught’ any time :).
Ah, so I’m not crazy that nobody has mentioned PR in a while!
Yes, focus on content and what you can control indeed.
It would be nice to know how often Google checks PR to see if you deserve an upgrade. Monthly? Quarterly? Yearly? I’ve been stuck at the same number for some time and have no clue as to how close I am to moving up. Guess this just proves your point about PR being a secondary thing to focus on.
Nobody knows. And it’s good few people care anymore. A waste of time and stress worrying about it. How’s the no comment system test coming along?
Good question! I hadn’t checked PR for at least six months. Happy Simple Living is a 4, and at one time was a 5. The best SEO practice for me that doesn’t take a lot of time is to log into my AdWords account and look at keyword traffic for specific terms when I’m writing a headline for my post. Beyond that, like you I just try to write good content.
Yay, we are the same PR! :)
When I first started blogging, I would keep track of PR and other stats, but over the years, I’ve become more concerned with the meat and potatoes – writing content based on our experience as a couple and what readers ask about. My PR has been steady for years now yet traffic has fluctuated. About twice a year I’ll go back and tweak some things on my site to ‘optimize’ it for search, but my main focus having a system I can manage and is useful for readers.
I think you’ve got the process down right. Amazing we’ve been blogging so long huh? I still remember when I did a guest post for you on Green Panda Treehouse! Whoo hoo!
Haha, I remember! GPT is an example of not following SEO tips and still getting traffic. The name itself has nothing to do with topic, but the name stuck around. When I sold it I thought they might change the name, but it’s still there.
Gosh, I haven’t heard about pagerank in what feels like at least a year! It’s definitely not something I hear about often – at all.
Make no mistake. Google still uses and calculates PageRank for every page on your site when it indexes it. The thing is that they keep that information internal and simply don’t publish it anymore on the toolbars that you and I see for 9 months (or more) at a time. That’s because in the last two years Matt Cutts has told us that Google wants people to stop being foolish with spending too much time trying to “game” their score rather than just produce good content. Not publishing the PR score every 3 months like they used to is Google’s way of deterring that.
Unfortunately, if you’re in the business of doing sponsored posts or flipping sites, you’ll still have to deal with a “higher PR is better” mentality from those people. If you don’t, then don’t worry about it. Instead focus on increasing your traffic and being clever about promoting the things that will earn you a side income.
That’s the thing. The business of doing sponsored posts is dying. Flipping sites, however, could be interesting and definitely relevant. But I encourage bloggers to focus on the long game.
Great post. I agree with you.
Putting out USEFUL good content is more important than trying to beat the system at SEO.
the future of ranking, just being USEFUL!
I have been wondering about this. I’m all about the challenge because it helps everyone be better, but I wonder if Pinterest hasn’t leveled the playing field. Anymore, Pinterest is a search engine, and it’s a whole different world!
I just opened an account on Pinterest and am just pinning my posts as they come. I’ve read some very positive things. My problem is spreading myself too thin.
Maybe I’ll go over to their HQ in Downtown SF and see if anybody would like to do an interview.
You’re right – Pinterest is just massive, especially when you consider that it’s just one of many social media sites. I belong to 20 Pinterest boards and it’s tough, for sure. I did start using a scheduling tool and that has helped a ton!
PageRank definitely doesn’t matter any more. Anybody who says it does or focuses on it, like your friend doesn’t know much about the online business.
It’s all about traffic, baby!
PageRank matter when you try to sell a site or domain along with if you are selling advertising. Many advertisers still want to see a high PR, but that is because they aren’t changing. PR and traffic levels don’t really coincide.
Thanks for the insight! I tend to agree with you on this one. When I first started MonicaOnMoney, I was super concered about Google Page Rank and all the other rankings. I’ve realized that it’s just more important to focus on writing creative articles instead.
Watching metrics like Pagerank is a waste of time. A better measure is engagement with your readers whether it be in the form of comments or emails coming in from them.
In fact page rank still matters, but it has a smaller effect on SERP then before panda and humming bird is introduced.
I’ve been blogging since August 2012 and my pagerank is currently at zero. Over the last 12 months I’ve only had 2 potential brands who were interested in working with me, question why it was at zero. Both times I gave them my DA and PA which they seemed to accept. I really think Pagerank is dead in the water as a metric.
– Ricky
Thanks for sharing Ricky.
The interesting thing about having a site with Page Rank 4, is I get inundated with Guest Post queries, and odd advertisers. I really write for me most of the time, I would like to have more readers, but I have found I must write stuff I think is interesting, or I get bored and lethargic about posting. Not really sure what Page Rank means any more, but as someone else has pointed out, it is still nice to say I have Page Rank 4.