Historically the Google PageRank update takes place approximately every three months. At the date of this post, the latest Google PageRank update is almost two months overdue causing frustration to many website owners and SEOs who wonder when the next update will appear, or if one will appear at all. There is talk in the search community that PageRank will no longer be used by Google as a measure because it has been abused by some who have tried to inflate their rankings unfairly. If speculation is correct and Google will no longer display the PageRank of a website, I daresay that quite soon we will see PageRank removed from every website across the internet. While I for one share some of this frustration, the end result could be a positive one. In the end website owners will no longer pay such close attention to the little green PageRank bar on the Google Toolbar. Too many website owners and SEOs spend too much time focusing on how to get as many links to their site as possible, and not enough time focusing on developing their site to become a more quality resource in its own right, for their target market. While there is no argument that inbound links play a very important role in how Google ranks a website, it often distracts website owners from building a quality website. An important consideration: Google PageRank is not the only determination or the most important one on how well your site ranks in the search engines. We have clients whose sites have only a PageRank of 2 or 3, and yet are listed at the top of the Google Search results - above sites with much higher PageRank. At the end of the day, it isn't about what PageRank a website shows, but where that website locates in the search results. So focus your efforts on building a quality website that will keep both existing customers interested in what you have to offer, as well as driving new customers to grow your business.
