The benefits of an increase in Google Toolbar PageRank (PR)

Google seems to have rolled out updates to the toolbar PageRank(PR) in the past couple of days. The last update was sometime in February.

Unlike in February, when I got the impression that there was a "general" drop --a personal view based on a very small sample of sites--this time I get the impression that the green bar has generally grown taller or longer [depending on the browser/ settings].

Benefits of an increase in the toolbar PR
The "psychological" benefits are enormous!
(a) Feel good factor: Doesn't the statement: PageRank is Google's measure of the importance of this page make you feel good, especially if you see that the PR bar is getting greener?

(b) Hope, Optimism & Re-assurance: Don't you experience highly positive emotions of hope and optimism that with a higher PR, your website is going to get greater traffic and cosequently more revenues (directly or indirectly)? Isn't it re-assuring to know that you are probably on the right track towards whatever that end goal is?

The consensus among SEO pundits is that the toolbar PR doesn't mean much and that material benefits like better search engine rankings and therefore, higher traffic are unlikely.

That is probably the case, but hey, while we are focused on the material benefits, let's continue to enjoy those wonderful feel good feelings of hope, optimism and reassurance with that little green bar.

After all, in most parts of the world, it is much better to see green than red or grey! :)

Simple & effective link baits/ link building tactics

Jason Lee Miller at WebProNews wrote a piece today "Making Link Bait Work for You".

I liked the piece because it summarizes the three basic approaches that work when working on building link popularity. I like such categorization/grouping [let's say, the 50,000 feet view] because it often makes the problem/project at hand seem much simpler/ less daunting than when looking at the specific items. Undoubtedly, it is the latter that will ultimately get the results, but looking at the broad picture often lets us be creative and come up with "innovative" specifics.

Nevertheless, excerpts from Jason's article on link bait are included below- typically, most websites will need a good mix of all of these simple link building tactics for an effective campaign, but choose the one that suits your objectives and your website/ product/ service the most.

Long term success of any link building campaign or effort really depends on how scalable a particular approach is, how we can get "x" multiples in return (aka, links) of the effort we put in. This requires thought, time and effort (read, money)-- a fact that is not often appreciated/understood enough.

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The Resource Approach (Becoming the Expert In Your Field/Niche)
-- Create expert articles/lists/data sheets
-- Create practical or fun tools
-- Write How-To articles
-- Create a comprehensive blog roll (give link love, get link love)
-- Compile informative news stories and articles

The News Approach
- Get the scoop. Be first with industry news
-- Interview prominent people in your field
-- Investigate a hot topic
-- Do an exposé

The Humor/Novelty Approach
-- Post funny/interesting/amazing photos related to your industry
-- Create humorous/unique videos (Use Blendtec for inspiration)
-- Create lists; people love lists – Top 10 Ways to…; 10 Signs You're…

But whatever you create as link bait, don't just post and forget it. Send out emails to industry people, drop a link into Digg, post at YouTube. In short, take advantage of every medium at your disposal.

Google PageRank update-- PR losses for high-profile sites

The "hot" news and topic for discussion in the SEO community for the past two days is the Google PageRank loss for some very high profile sites, including www.Forbes.com and www.washingtonpost.com. For a bigger list, check out this blog post by Rand Fishkin at SEOMoz.

There are a number of very good reviews out there on why there has been a drastic drop in PR for some of these sites; the main thinking is that it is Google's penalty for selling text links. Rich Ord has categorized the reactions into four categories--including the "Google is Justified" scool of thought to the "Google is Out of Control". Read his post here.

A move like this from Google had been expected sooner rather than later, even since it came down heavily on several pay-for-inclusion directory sites in the recent past. If the intent is to prevent link selling and thus prevent artificial boosting of link popularity, it remains to be seen how successful Google will be.

My take on this is this: Irresspective of what happens with the contentious green bar on the Google toolbar [there is speculation that it could be a thing of the past soon], as long as "in-bound links" to a website or page is known to be a factor [and a key factor at that] affecting rankings in search results, there will continue to be link buying / link selling / link exchange / some form of "link popularity manipulation". There will be a demand for generating in-bound links; and there will be "creative" suppliers to meet that demand.

I believe the weightage that links have in determining relevance and consequently, rankings, has to come down / will come down at some stage; this change will have to come from the search engines, not users [I mention users broadly here--- marketers, publishers / link selllers, and searchers].