If any of you have been to JohnChow.com today, you may or may not have noticed that his PageRank dropped to a 5. When I first saw the 5 in the Google Toolbar, I thought it was probably just a fluke.
I ran a tool to check his PR in a bunch of different data centers to find out that he’s a five on all of them. This image shows some of them, in reality the test checked about 100 different data centers.
I personally read his blog because it gives me ideas about monetization. No matter what you think about John, you can’t deny that. He is a freaking genius at creating different streams of income. I would love to hear what John has to say about this decrease. It seems that Google really has it out for him. What’s sad is that it will probably hurt the amount he’s able to charge to advertising.
No Other Sites Are Updating Yet
As of this moment, I’m not able to find any other sites whose PageRank has been updated. I’ll continue to watch this and let you guys know if I see any changes.
Casey
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I thought John was always a PR 5 blog. I guess it was a 6.
Court
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Yeah he was a 6! It’s pretty weird because I’m still not seeing any PR changes on any other sites.
James
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I guess it is a good example of pagerank not being a good measure of a site.
Like you I think John is great at coming up with new ideas. He is also very entertaining.
Court
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He definitely has a lot of personality! He’s great at coming up with stuff other people haven’t tried. Usually it works, and sometimes it gets him in trouble.
Either way, if it works it works.
Greg
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Off-topic, but I noticed you have dropped your “in post” adsense block and replaced it with images.
Is there wisdom behind this decision we could benefit from knowing? I know you give decisions like this a lot of thought.
tinymeme
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I noticed too. What’s the reasoning for this?
I didn’t like the in-post ads as they were.
Court
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Hi Greg and Tiny!
I haven’t dropped the ad unit altogether, but I’m going to be putting a graphic there when I feel like it makes it a better post.
The unexpected effect is that my posts that have a picture there are doing a lot better at getting traffic from social media.
Carlo Selorio
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Hey Courtney,
I noticed this about 6 hours ago, after checking out a few sites with all the pagerank updates talk from a few Bloggers.
John Chow is still climbing at alexa… so credit to him.
Cheers,
Carlo Selorio
Court
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His site will keep growing because he has so much momentum right now. You do have to give him major props for that!
EzRich
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check out the PR for http://www.gwei.org. It’s PR6 and I don’t understand the relevancy of that site comparing with JohnChow
Court
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Hmm.. I’m showing PR0 for that site!
freeadlists
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Court,
Note the “.” between “g” and “/”. Ezrich had the period included in the hyperlink. That’s why you’re getting a PR0, http://www.gwei.org./index.php
Here’s the PR6 site, http://www.gwei.org/index.php
Frankly speaking, I’m surprised it’s a PR6 site…
Court
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Some of the sites that have good PR are definitely surprising. That one has some really strong links from other sites, so that’s definitely why.
Ankesh Kothari
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I think its because Google is making changes to their “anchor text” logs and John Chow’s famous contest made people link to his blog using the same anchor text – which is now hurting him.
But John Chow’s blog is not going to get less popular. So this Google Pagerank is only going to be temporary as more people link to him using different anchor text and phrases.
Court
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I agree, he probably will be a 6 again eventually. It’s odd to me that they changed his right now though. It makes me think that there’s an update coming, but I don’t see any changes.
martin
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Hi Court,
I also noticed this page rank drop yesterday. I know what your saying about they have it in for him, however if they wanted to get rid of him they could have just banned him. He’s now such an authority that that would never happen, If he was more small fry I think he would have been banned.
It really annoys me that Google are always trying to improve their search’s to be more relevent, but have made it so John doesn’t show up for his own name. They might think they are doing right but in my eyes it’s devaluing their search. If I type in John chow, I want to see John Chow at the number 1 position.
Court
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Hey Martin! It IS pretty weird that he doesn’t rank for his own name. You would think that they would adjust that.
I’m somewhat surprised that they didn’t ban him – not that I think he deserves it – it’s that Google doesn’t mind making an example out of someone.
Mani
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hi court
@martin
u are looks like a real fan of John , he has less number of anchor text on his name, most of anchor text is about his VALUABLE posts , if u search abt any of his post u can find it quickly
anchor text and page title of back link page is most important things
Court
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That’s true Mani, anchor text and page titles are very important. I still think they should adjust so he ranks first for his name though.
Iantrepreneur
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but are we sure google is updating their pageranks? because there is controversy or paid links and how it can cheat the google system?
Court
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We’re sure that they updated John’s PageRank, but aren’t sure that they’re exporting PageRank globally. On the contrary, I can’t see any other changes at all.
Angela
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See, this is the type of thing that shows how obsolete PR is becoming.
Court
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It’s waaaaaaayyy obsolete right now!
Angel
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I don’t understand why his is the only one that’s updated. It’s very strange. But how will it really affect him?
Court
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I just saw that Statcounter.com dropped from a PR9 to a PR8. I still can’t see the normal changes though. I think they’re doing some kind of manual drop for sites that have shady ways of getting links.
VagabondoDigitale
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Good resource.. thx
accident prone
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very interesting, if you say his blog is a good read then i shall read it. thanks court.
Court
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He’s pretty smart when it comes to monetization. He has run a technology site for about 10 years now. You should check it out: http://www.thetechzone.com
David Hopkins
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I also noticed this, but I also noticed another domain had a different PR today, so I don’t know if Matt Cutts accidently hit the ‘Update PR’ button today
Court
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Hey David!
Did the other domain also drop a point? So far the only domains that I know to have changed have all dropped one point…
yannick eckl
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Hmm.. not nice from google.. But.. Who cares?
Court
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Yeah, I think he’s doing alright with a 5.
Matthew
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I highly doubt his prices will ever go down, if anything they will continue to rise.
The John Chow name is branded, his blog generally provides great result when people advertise on his blog.
A pr5 isn’t even bad, he might have to worry if he gets ranked a 0
Court
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The only ad-type that would be affected are John’s text links. They probably aren’t worth quite as much. However, people are willing to pay a premium for advertising on his site. I would say you’re probably right – he won’t have to lower prices.
joe perros
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I wonder if Google just doesn’t like him or if there are some hackers out there bringing him down? … What do you think google would be most mad at him for?
Court
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Google didn’t like his link for a review thing. They probably think that he got some extra PageRank doing that.
Donald Mckenzie Jr
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Wow….I really did not nitice at all. Why would google do this to him. He has a great blog.
Court
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He does have a great blog but some of his links were artificial. I guess Google thinks a 5 is more where he should be.
Car videos
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Weird how individual sites change rank but overall there is no PR rank change foe other sites.
Court
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I know! I wish Google would just pull the trigger already.
WarMMO
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Why? :/
John is a cool guy and I can’t understand why google is doing that without a real reason.
Court
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I think they do have a reason actually. Did you read his site when he was trading reviews for links? That’s what Google didn’t like, in my opinion.
SL Lindens
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hmm I think this is because John Chow removed Google Ads already to make more money in his site.
Court
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Ooooooh, very interesting theory SL Lindens! I hadn’t thought of that possibility. I hope that one isn’t true but who knows!
fundraising ideas
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I love reading John Chows blog. I wonder why google is so hard on him. All his blog post are very informative.
Craig
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I was slapped also. Yep, mine drop to a 2 from a 3, down from a 4 early this year and I was trying so hard to get it back to 4. Oh well!
ScamFreeMoneyMaker
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I don’t think losing page rank is an issues at all. those people are having a lot of money. they have been on low PR and got to High PR. if they can do it once they can do it again. if you are good you are good.
if that’s not the case why people are talking about the law of attraction. i don’t worry about what trouble people with money have because they have plenty of resources. what i concern is how people with so little money can have a future to look forward too.
Richard Metcalfe
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I don’t think PR matters as much for chow. I have herd dropping in PR such a small amount very rarely effects your visitors or hits and there what bring the money in.
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mine has been really unstable, keeps fluctuating!
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Celexa & Injury
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But Google can change the PR how he want? I can believe that. I thought it`s an algorithm or something. Strange…