Bigger and better or slowly disappearing – is Google Toolbar PageRank here to stay?

There have been a few announcements bouncing around lately that the love-to-hate Google Toolbar PageRank has gone to ranking heaven, but as we can see, this feature is still firmly in place and Google are adamant on the fact that the Toolbar PageRank is here to stay. The truth is that TBPR is not a favourite amongst many but it is a lot like a car crash – you don’t want to look at it but you just can’t help yourself. In normal Google character, instead of the constant denying of the death of their TBPR, they have decided to show their satisfaction with this little green bar and update their Toolbar PR application. What many individuals find surprising is that this new and improved update has come happily along only a month after the last one, whereas a few years ago the Toolbar was only being updated annually.

I think that nearly all of us are guilty of relying a bit too much on that little green bar that we see at the top of our page and even I am guilty of glancing at it before I even take a good look at the websites content. The debate still remains: is this Google feature merely a gimmick or beneficial addition for the ranking seeker?

Now, before anyone (including myself) gets too confused here – there is indeed a difference between Toolbar PageRank (TBPR) and Google’s PageRank. Toolbar PageRank is the thin green bar that you see at the top of your page when you are browsing. This bar has a 1 – 10 rating and this ranks a page numerically. PageRank is the core element of link analysis and is how Google rates and ranks pages. PageRank information is not available to the public. Hence the presentation of TBPR for our curious satisfaction. The fact of the matter is that TBPR should not be relied on, but rather looked at as an extra feature in addition to other practices.

Once we know that Toolbar PageRank is not the bee-all and end-all of rankings, we will realise that there are various actions we can do to strengthen the ranking of a page. What works for some, might not work for others and as our frustration grows as we see many individuals confuse PageRank and Toolbar PageRank, many of us have realised that Toolbar PageRank will most probably continue, despite its so-called inefficiency, because people use it, and if they use it, it will remain. And once we have accepted this fact, we will discontinue ranting on the topic and (well, some of us) will sleep better at night.