If you have recently logged into Google Webmaster Tools, you must have noticed that Google has silently got rid of PageRank from Webmaster Tools. This change in the webmaster tools section has made the whole search industry wonder about Google’s extreme action. You can also see a thread on Google about removal of Pagerank from WMT. Google Webmaster Trends Analyst – Susan Moskwa explains there

“We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.”


Another fact which is worth noting is that even though Google has dropped PageRank from its Webmaster Tools, Google’s toolbar still shows the PageRank score. This clearly indicates that Google has not completely removed PageRank as a criteria for ranking from its algorithm. And one can clearly see that the sites that come up at the top in Google are based on PageRank. All this is becoming bit confusing as many web users have Google toolbar installed on their browser, whereas very few webmasters actually use Webmaster Tools. So, if Google really wants to stop webmasters concentrating on PageRank, then they have to take a stronger stand on PageRank.

Some time back in 2007, Google needed feedback from webmasters on the removal of PageRank score from Google toolbar. This discussion and conversation ultimately ended up without any solution as Google did not take any further action on this issue. However hard Google tries to convince webmasters not to pay much attention to PageRank, it is difficult for Google to get rid of PageRank as it is more of their branding.

Google still uses PageRank to decide on the inherent value of the web page by knowing its link popularity. And in doing so, it often neglects content while ranking the websites. I personally feel that Google should take a proper decision, revise its ranking algorithm and either completely remove this PageRank score from toolbar or update the toolbar data regularly. They don’t gain anything by confusing users and webmasters.

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