Did You Hear The Mountain Fall? It Was Your PageRank!

This morning I opened some of my favorite blogs and looks like everyone, and I mean it — EVERYONE is talking about the merciless Google PageRank collapse, that hit most of the top bloggers and no one seen it coming… Here are some stats to start the morning with (although some of the below listed sites dropped their PR 1-2 weeks ago already)

autoblog.com PR6 –> PR4
engadget.com PR7 –> PR5
problogger.net PR6 –> PR4
copyblogger.com PR6 –> PR4
joystiq.com PR6 –> PR4
tuaw.com PR6 –> PR4
searchengineguide.com PR7 –> PR4
searchenginejournal.com PR7 –> PR4
johnchow.com PR6 –> PR4
quickonlinetips.com/ PR6 –> PR3
weblogtoolscollection.com/ PR6 –> PR4
andybeard.eu PR5 –> PR3

(Thanks Andy for the list)

You will be amazed to also discover that some of the Internet’s leading websites lost their credibility in Google’s eyes as well. Take for instance washingtonpost.com that went from PR7 to PR5 or the famous rich people’s magazine online Forbes.com that dropped as well from PR7 to PR5. Actually I can go on forever because the list of penalized domains, never mind how trusted they are, is huge.

Who giggles apart from Google?

Probably the rest of the world who’s PR was not affected, but… The amusing part is, now toptut.com is in the same PR league as johnchow.com, coppyblogger.com, weblogtollscollection.com, searchengineguide.com and problogger.net (!!), while it’s obvious that this blog is a few light years away from these big names. So what’s Google point here? To just penalize anyone who has achieved a decent or semi-decent PR? Or can’t simple mortals gain more than PR5 anymore while only the Gods at Mountain View can climb higher than that?

There is still no answer for these question as PR update was not finalized and apart from guesses, ideas, assumptions and fears, we don’t know anything.

If you feel like torturing yourself with this whole Google PR Update Tragedy a bit more, you can read also on Daniel’s, Kumiko’s, Darren’s CoppyBlogger’s blogs about the the devastating Q3-Q4 207 update.This update reminds me actually of war with Napoleon, when only after the war was over, it was possible to estimate the true losses… Hope this update won’t take as long as the war with Napoleon though!

P.S. – It does not matter if you sell PR links or not, you will probably lose your ranking anyway, because Google knows better if you sold links or not…