The search engine Google.com recently updated its PageRanks system, in late October, which affects how high different web sites appear in Google search results. Much attention is paid to changes in pageranks (PR) by web site owners who are interested in improving their sites’ search engine optimization.

Websites which provide news related to internet marketing have reported that many sites now have poorer pageranks than they did before the update, with some dropping multiple points, including a number of well-known mainstream sites. There has been much speculation about how pageranks might have been reduced for web sites which were selling or exchanging links, which Google opposes (unless the “nofollow” tag is used, which eliminates search ranking benefits from the link). According to searchenginejournal.com, Matt Cutts (who works for Google) has confirmed to them that the change to pageranks was “primarily” to penalize web sites that are selling links.

Google’s reasoning for this is that it helps improve the quality of their search results, although it could be argued that this is in conflict with their willingness sell sponsored search result listings which appear above other results. Other theories for changes to the PR of sites which have not been selling links have been suggested on various web sites, blogs, and forums.

The pageranks of some sites did increase, and others stayed the same, so it does not appear to have been an adjustment in the value of different ranking levels. Many sources have reported that the pagerank update hasn’t brought about any noteworthy change in Google search results yet, but this seems likely to change. Updates of their pageranks do not always occur on a clear, regular basis; however, according to wikipedia.org, they are updated approximately every three months. They tend to fluctuate for a few days after some of the updates. Most likely, they are actually updated more frequently in Google’s system, but such updates are not visible to the public. Wikipedia also indicates that the PR has a direct impact on the order in which websites are listed on the Google Directory.

The greatest impact on the pageranks of individual web sites comes from the number of other web pages which link to them, but other factors can also impact pagerank values. Better pageranks can lead to more web site traffic and greater advertising sales. The pagerank of a particular site can be checked on free services such as prchecker.info or with the Google Toolbar.

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