And more than likely you detest pagerank.
Like going to a dance in the sixth grade, you don’t know how come you’re not cool. You don’t know what you can do to be cool. All you know is, the cool kids don’t think you’re cool.
So it is with page rank. If the great and lofty Google has decreed that my site is worth this or that or something else, then it is so. For those fortunate people with page ranks of six or seven or eight or nine, they’ve been granted a gift, and the key to untold blessings.
But for the rest of us getting a 4 or a 5 (or heaven forbid. 3, 2, 1, or the dreaded 0) pagerank is just a constant reminder that we’re not cool – and we don’t know why.
I understand the mechanics of it: links, popularity, who clicks through from the search engine, etc. All of these things go towards the ranking.
And if it was a easily to duplicate the formula, then you’d know why you fail, and could correct it.
But like the ‘special sauce’, what annoys me is the factors we’ll never be told – the full recipe that makes up pagerank. So important, so opaque, and yet so many people depend on what could be any number of factors completely beyond their control.
When I was a kid I went to a local roller rink and we played Whip The Whip. For those of you who’ve never played, it involves a long line of kids skating around holding onto each other, and the one in front decides where to go, which means the ones at the end gets whipped around really fast on the turns.
REALLY FAST.
Guess where I was.
Guess why I didn’t play Whip The Whip after that?
I don’t like the idea of swinging around wildly under another person’s control – and pagerank reminds me too much of Whip the Whip. If page rank was simply a source of good, no problem. But like a special contest for the kiddies where everyone wins a ribbon, giving the same rank to everyone would make for good feelings – but little else.
My reason for complaining here is not the page rank is bad (although to be clear, if it’s under five it sure feels that way), but that I think it’s inadequate for websites – and especially for blogs.
I think it’s time to come up with a different system for blogs. One that is open, easy to understand and hard to ‘game’. Yes, I know people will try to fiddle with the system for their benefit, but that shouldn’t mean the methodology needs to be private.
For instance, an open method might involve a social component. At the very least, if there was a way of tracking links to/from the blog, and how long visitors stay, you’d have an idea how popular a blog is. This would likely require people putting code on their sites to monitor – but the benefit of having an independent ranking might make it well worth the trouble.
And I realize that other companies are doing that now, but my goal would be something open source – something that anybody could choose or modify but that gives an independent evaluation. Because frankly, if any one company has the control over the information, then the potential is to abuse it – much as what we’re seeing with pagerank now.
So yes, it’s time for change and openness is vital – not only because it means everybody knows exactly how they’re being graded, but also open means no one group or person can control it. And although Google no doubt likes being the master of their ‘official’ standard, the rest of us are playing Whip the Whip from the unfun end. And I for one prefer not being at the Whip’s end when it comes to my online marketing.
