Google have been frustrating SEO watchers for a couple of months now by putting off updating toolbar PR for most sites, although they’ve annoyed a lot of pro bloggers by downgrading PR en masse for a whole heap of blogging sites.
Presuming you weren’t one of these unlucky few, I’ve found a way to check your current Pagerank, as long as your site is in the Google Directory. As most people realise, Google gets their data from Dmoz, so if you’re in one directory, you’re almost certainly in the other one. The difference between the two is that Google Directory sorts it’s directory listings by PR.
My web design business, MB Web Design, currently displays PR4 in the toolbar (and has done for months and months). However, check my listing in Google Directory and it shows PR6. I’ve seen a couple of other sites with different toolbar PRs versus their PR in Google Directory. So, go and have a look. You may be pleasantly surprised.
I think that Google’s sudden demotion of PR value for leading blogs is a way to deter such sites from selling links purely for the link juice. Some evidence supporting this theory follows:
- Autoblog’s toolbar PR dropped from 6 to 4. Interesting that in Google directory it’s a 7.
- Engadget’s toolbar dropped from 7 to 5. In Google directory it’s still 7.
- Andy Beard dropped from 5 to 3. Nope, in Directory he’s still 5.
- Search Engine Journal dropped from 7 to 4 and… you guessed it.
Interestingly however, ProBlogger went from Pr6 to PR4, but according to Google Directory, has no PR at all…
Feel free to contibute any other discrepancies between Google Directory PR and toolbar PR.