In May, we blogged about Google VP of Engineering Udi Manber's post where he introduced search quality. In the same post, he says that Google has "made significant changes to the PageRank algorithm in January." Last week, Matt Cutts told us that we're in the midst of a PageRank update, and now forum members are wondering what kinds of changes were made to the PR algorithm. In a WebmasterWorld thread, Tedster says that he thinks that a few things may have been altered:
- Internal links and external links on the same page may not be splitting the PageRank vote equally.
- Depending on the location of the link, PR may be weighted differently.
- Multiple links to the same url from the same page may not each get the same piece of the PR vote.
- "Run-of-site" external links, like Blogrolls, may now have diminished PR.
- Links between domains that Google sees as "related" may have their PR significantly damped down. Possibly the same goes for sites that link to subdomains.
Are Ted's observations correct? Some of the ideas he proposed may be difficult to fathom. For example, subdomains that are not owned by the same user (think blogspot here) may interlink, and why shouldn't their PR count?
A lot of these ideas are simply that: ideas. They're based on conjecture and not on evidence. Some forum members find that it's important to actually test these theories before calling them as they seem to be.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
