Google Page Rank Shuffle

Just last week a friend asked me why it seemed his Page Rank was off. I gotta tell ya, this past six weeks, Google's Page Rank has been strange on sites that I visit frequently. These are those sites where you have seen the Toolbar Page Rank so many times it's almost oblivious.

I've discussed here before how unimportant Google Page Rank is to making money with contextual advertising, but let me again put your fears at ease. You don't need any Page Ranking to make money. The key to getting ads seen is traffic. Page Ranking is gold only when you expect all of your traffic to be organic, i.e., from search engines and not advertising. Page Rank has to do with how important Google feels your site is in the big scheme of things.

You wonder what direction should you go? Links? Ads? Press releases? From my observation, and what I've noted across the Internet, Google's Page Rank is in a "shuffle". So, I told my friend - don't worry about it, I'm sure Google has enough on its plate right now that the Page Rank algorithm isn't important. In other words, keep doing what you're doing.

When will it settle down? There are no guarantees, but we're told to hold onto our hats for another few weeks. I am guessing January 20, 2006, will be the date everything should be back to normal. But why stress?

Traffic from the right places, the visitors who see your ads, don't stress about Page Rank - but strive to get quality links to your site.

Now where's that plate of black-eyed peas?

Kind regards,
Dave Jackson
Sunny Naples, FL