So, you know I wrote about the cuts in Google’s page rank and how it was hitting people who’d bought in links and were feeling the pain of Google’s ethical stance? Well now I’m not so sure.
Yesterday, Barablu — my latest SEO project — felt the sting of demotion too. Its page rank fell one point, from 5 to 4.
Yet (as far as I can see) Barablu has NEVER in the past operated any dodgy practices, especially link buying: I wish the same could be said for the competition. No, the loss of a PR point in this case at least must be more than a Google moral backlash.
As usual, Google are keeping tight-lipped about the reasons behind the recent PR massacre and to be sure there are many sites around who’ve suffered more than Barablu. Yet, what makes this whole adjustment even more puzzling for me is that I know for a fact that sites which don’t exist are maintaining their page rank!
Now I’m not talking about some dodgy blackhat technique: the site in question — which I shouldn’t name for confidentiality reasons — ceased operations back in July because the owner couldn’t afford (or couldn’t be bothered) to pay his site dues. It was duly decommissioned and all the pages deleted; if you go there now you get the usual 404 errors.
However, if you search Google for the site right now you’ll be told that it has 41 pages and a PR of 4, albeit with no backlinks! As they say, go figure!
Go Tell The Marines!
In truth, Barablu’s real problem is years of unwitting, benign neglect. It was first in its field — making free calls using a mobile phone — and it still out-features the competition but it languishes in the lower reaches of the search engine rankings on almost all of its keyword phrases because, until now, no-one ever said anything. A recent comment on an Italian blog summed it up: “Even if Barablu is not very visible — not advertised properly — the software offers some interesting services you should try.”
As I write, I’m waiting to unleash a new Barablu website on an unsuspecting world, but for now all I can practically do is to encourage everyone here that I can to blog their socks off about Barablu and its associated technological fields via the Barablu Blog (catchy name, don’t cha think!).
For you see, as I think I’ve been saying for a while now, Content is King! And even with the meagre resources at hand right now, Barablu’s SEO is actually improving. See you at the top … .
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