We have seen two PageRank updates this month (October 2007), and the effect of the second wave is just taking effect this morning.
- BetFair from 7 to 6
- InTrade from 6 to 5
- TradeSports from 6 to 5
- IEM from 7 to 6
- SpreadFair from 5 to 4
- Betdaq is 5
- MatchBook is 3
- HSX from 7 to 6
- NewsFutures from 7 to 6
- Inkling is 6
- HedgeStreet is 6
- PopSci PPX is 7 – [!!???]
- The Sim Exchange is 5
- CFM and MO from 6 to 5 –
– [*] - Marginal Revolution from 7 to 6
- WashPost and Forbes from 7 to 5
PageRank scale: 0–-10
[*] As plenty of SEO experts have commented this week on web forums, this decrease in PageRank has been accompanied by an increase in traffic from Google Search visitors. Go figure. 
See in this list if you need some PageRank checkers.
—-
APPENDIX: The Sentence Of The Day…-
Ironically, in the ultimate democracy that is the Internet, Google reigns as virtual dictator.
UPDATE: An explanation that makes sense to me…-
Also another really interesting and also expected outcome was that due to the progressive expanding of the web, all page rank values require more and more links to be achieved. Now for pr 3 you need more than 2.5k link popularity, pr 4 more than 5 to 20k links and pr 6 >- 150k. Note that this is LINK POPULARITY not links only which is relatively the number of actual links since most search engines don’t show the real value.
UPDATE: A third update?
More.
Author Profile -Editor and Publisher of Midas Oracle .ORG .NET .COM —- Chris Masse’-s mugshot —- Contact Chris Masse —- Chris Masse’-s LinkedIn profile —- Chris Masse’-s FaceBook profile —- Chris Masse’-s Google profile —- Sophia-Antipolis, France, E.U. Read more from this author…-Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:
- Comments are now completely open on Midas Oracle.
- Albert Einstein, Chairman of the Midas Oracle Advisory Board
- Erratic –but not Stochastic– Charts
- Barack Obama is the 44th US president.
- We already have prediction markets in future tax rates. It’s called the municipal bond yield curve.
- DELEGATES AND SUPERDELEGATES ACCOUNTANCY
- O’Reilly – Money-Tech Conference
Another example of Google using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
In much the same way that their “news” service is neither driven by the principles of objectvity or quality of content, this latest policy discriminates against non-commercial sites, in order to put the squeeze on overtly commercial ones. And frankly, it calls into question just how smart a company google is.
The terms restraint of trade and abuse of a dominant market position spring to mind…..
Niall, I thought the same thing as you… until I ran into a blog post that gave an explanation that makes sense: the Web is expanding, and thus the PageRanks, relatively, are harder to get. See the UPDATE in the blog post above… (Are you convinced by that explanation?)
http://hanson.gmu.edu and http://www.overcomingbias.com both get rank 6 — flatter as I am, I’m not sure it makes sense for them to be rated higher than Forbes or InTrade.
to Robin Hanson:
– In fact, I have just spotted the PageRanks of all the mainstream medias, and most of them are 7, 8 and sometimes 9.
– So Forbes and the WashPost are some exceptions.
As for comparing our PageRanks, we should be careful about the rounding.
– a PR of 5.49 is rounded down to 5
– a PR of 5.51 is rounded up to 6
I think Google should disclose the PageRanks up to one decimal.
All that said, are Robin Hanson and his group blog worth more than InTrade, really? Well, I’d say it’s up to InTrade to get more high-quality incoming links. One tactic could be to incite bloggers into embedding more the InTrade widgets (dynamic charts). It’s up to InTrade to get more free publicity in terms of incoming links.
The comments on this thread strike me as a total rush to judgment. I’m a fan of most of the sites above whose PageRanks supposedly decreased. But without knowing more, I can’t asses the quality of this algorithm change.
Specifically, I’d want to know:
1) Who (if anyone and especially competitors) had their PageRanks increased? If everyone was shifted down, it is likely to have little effect on the search results on prediction or betting markets.
2) How accurate is Chris’ data on PageRank?
3) How much does Google use PageRank (when accurately reported) in search results — as opposed to other metrics?
4) How the changes in the algorithm effects search results on other topics? Perhaps a tradeoff is worthwhile to have worse search results on prediction markets and better search results elsewhere.
To my knowledge, none of you have attempted to systematically measure the effect of this change on search quality. If you had, it would make a much more convincing case than anything you have posted here so far.
Its a shame when one of your favorite sites got genuinely downgraded. Who knows: Maybe that site isn’t as relevant or useful for everyone as you think it is. Or maybe the site was engaged in some genuine search-engine spamming that you weren’t aware of. Its always a lot easier to blame someone else when this is the case. Your critique is completely unconvincing.
Rather than “dictator” or “restraint of trade”, I think the appropriate term here is “authority.” And even with the word authority it should be cautioned that authority Google holds, it only holds due to the choices and habits of its users.
Google is influential, or not, just as long as people choose to use their products and services. Millions of people do, but no one will be imprisoned or shot for turning to ask.com or some other search engine. No one without an explicit contract with Google to the contrary is impeded from partnering with other enterprises.
“2) How accurate is Chris’ data on PageRank?”
I think my data is accurate, but the owners of those sites can come forward to confirm or infirm. Or another observer.
“If everyone was shifted down, it is likely to have little effect on the search results on prediction or betting markets. ” Quite true.
Another example of Google using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
In much the same way that their “news” service is neither driven by the principles of objectvity or quality of content, this latest policy discriminates against non-commercial sites, in order to put the squeeze on overtly commercial ones. And frankly, it calls into question just how smart a company google is.
The terms restraint of trade and abuse of a dominant market position spring to mind…..
Niall, I thought the same thing as you… until I ran into a blog post that gave an explanation that makes sense: the Web is expanding, and thus the PageRanks, relatively, are harder to get. See the UPDATE in the blog post above… (Are you convinced by that explanation?)
http://hanson.gmu.edu and http://www.overcomingbias.com both get rank 6 — flatter as I am, I’m not sure it makes sense for them to be rated higher than Forbes or InTrade.
to Robin Hanson:
– In fact, I have just spotted the PageRanks of all the mainstream medias, and most of them are 7, 8 and sometimes 9.
– So Forbes and the WashPost are some exceptions.
As for comparing our PageRanks, we should be careful about the rounding.
– a PR of 5.49 is rounded down to 5
– a PR of 5.51 is rounded up to 6
I think Google should disclose the PageRanks up to one decimal.
All that said, are Robin Hanson and his group blog worth more than InTrade, really? Well, I’d say it’s up to InTrade to get more high-quality incoming links. One tactic could be to incite bloggers into embedding more the InTrade widgets (dynamic charts). It’s up to InTrade to get more free publicity in terms of incoming links.
The comments on this thread strike me as a total rush to judgment. I’m a fan of most of the sites above whose PageRanks supposedly decreased. But without knowing more, I can’t asses the quality of this algorithm change.
Specifically, I’d want to know:
1) Who (if anyone and especially competitors) had their PageRanks increased? If everyone was shifted down, it is likely to have little effect on the search results on prediction or betting markets.
2) How accurate is Chris’ data on PageRank?
3) How much does Google use PageRank (when accurately reported) in search results — as opposed to other metrics?
4) How the changes in the algorithm effects search results on other topics? Perhaps a tradeoff is worthwhile to have worse search results on prediction markets and better search results elsewhere.
To my knowledge, none of you have attempted to systematically measure the effect of this change on search quality. If you had, it would make a much more convincing case than anything you have posted here so far.
Its a shame when one of your favorite sites got genuinely downgraded. Who knows: Maybe that site isn’t as relevant or useful for everyone as you think it is. Or maybe the site was engaged in some genuine search-engine spamming that you weren’t aware of. Its always a lot easier to blame someone else when this is the case. Your critique is completely unconvincing.
Rather than “dictator” or “restraint of trade”, I think the appropriate term here is “authority.” And even with the word authority it should be cautioned that authority Google holds, it only holds due to the choices and habits of its users.
Google is influential, or not, just as long as people choose to use their products and services. Millions of people do, but no one will be imprisoned or shot for turning to ask.com or some other search engine. No one without an explicit contract with Google to the contrary is impeded from partnering with other enterprises.
“2) How accurate is Chris’ data on PageRank?”
I think my data is accurate, but the owners of those sites can come forward to confirm or infirm. Or another observer.
“If everyone was shifted down, it is likely to have little effect on the search results on prediction or betting markets. ” Quite true.