Google's Hyves PageRank Loophole? Check If Site Has Google Penalty

Jan 20, 2009 • 4:48 pm | comments (14) by | Filed Under Google Search Algorithm Updates
 

Marcus Tandler blogged about a discovery in a German SEO thread at my old time friend's forum named ABAKUS Forums (translated version over here), about a weird loophole that seems to allow you to check if a site is penalized or not, via the Google Toolbar.

Let me show you how it works. Here is an example.

(1) Open a browser that has the Google Toolbar installed, with a PageRank feature. Navigate to http://www.seo-radio.de/ (as an example) and see the PageRank value is a 5. Here is a screen capture:

Google PR Hyves

(2) Change the URL to http://hyves.seo-radio.de/ and notice the PageRank value jumps up to a 7. Here is a screen capture:

Google PR Hyves

Now, what is going on here. According to the consensus in the thread, there are three values you can get from doing this:

  • PR7 = No Google Penalty
  • PR4 = Google Penalty
  • PR0 = Site Banned in Google

What would be Google's rational in having this loophole? I really don't know. How can this be overlooked by Google? I am not sure. But everyone is in agreement that this loophole will be gone, soon enough.

Forum discussion at Sphinn and ABAKUS Forums.

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