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Microsoft is taking on the big G on many fronts lately. Now learn (and rejoice) about the latest front — Page Rank.
Google’s Page Rank algorithm has long been the bane of a webmaster’s existence. How to get that coveted page rank and keep it or improve it is the subject of many an article and blog post. Books have been written on it. But the true how it works has never been explained so that it makes sense to me. There seems to be quite a bit of arbitrary “stuff” involved in how PR is determined.
Now Microsoft seeks to challenge Google’s method of measuring page importance by introducing BrowseRank.
This article by Nathania Johson explains more fully how Microsoft intends to measure ranking and while the general consensus is that it still needs some tweaking, the argument for BrowseRank over Page Rank is a strong one.
It’s never made a whole lot of sense to me why having links on other sites would make YOUR site more relevant in the scheme of things, unless you are so totally into this internet = web (think spiderweb and interconnected websites) imagery. That’s how Google measures for page rank — by how many and how relevant your back links are. Page Rank has become the yardstick by which a site is measured as to it’s importance in the Internet. But the algorithm itself is mystical and seems illogical at times. How a site with over 2000 backlinks is unrated while one with only 200 backlinks has a PR of 1 makes little sense if the PR gurus are to be believed in how Page Rank works.
Microsoft’s BrowseRank will take into account how long people are at your site.
While using time on site as a measure of your site’s importance will penalize those sites using EntreCard to drive traffic to it, and cause “bounce rate” to be a heavy factor against your site, it still seems to me that this is a more relevant way to determine your true worth within the Internet community.
Having 100 or 200 people reading my feed in a feed reader isn’t what seems to be most important. Having those same people AT your site and clicking through your articles or clicking ON your ads seems to be the goal of most site owners or should be. Having people reading my articles through a feed means I’m more likely to NOT get a comment on said article no matter how well written or appreciated it is. And they definitely won’t see or click on the few ads I have on this site. Oh and let’s not forget Stumble, Digg and Technorati favorite it. Those things don’t happen, either.
Microsoft’s BrowseRank seems to think like I do. That it’s the people HERE, reading, clicking and commenting that define this site’s true worth.
What is your take on this new development? Do you think BrowseRank will be successful in it’s bid against Page Rank? Do you tend to subscribe to your favorite sites through a feed or do you bookmark them to come back to?
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Tags: BrowseRank, Google, Microsoft, Page Rank, Searching, Technorati, Website, World Wide Web
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August 5th, 2008 at 9:12 am
i think i need to find out more about this browser rank thing before it goes mainstream. Thanks for the Heads up.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I have a lot of thoughts about Page Rank, none to good actually. I think people worry about that too much. As far as stumbles and diggs go, they are worthless to me. Too much garbage gets stumbled/dugg in my opinion. All the stumble/digg exchange sites with people mindlessly stumbling/digging posts just so someone will return the favor makes a joke of it. I just kind of do my own thing and if people like my drivel, great. If not, so be it.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I think we will just wait and see with Microsoft browser, sounds interesting. many bloggers are no longer that excited to get the page rank because it’s up and down all the time…ans i agree with you, what is important with blogger is how many actual readers you have, how many commented on your post because that show’s the importance of your existence. To me, i don’t look at how many subscriber you have(Feedburner) because you can play with it “subscribe my site and i will subscriber your site” your site showing 1500 reader whooww! then you only have 3 or 4 comment so what does it says? i think Microsoft is going to be a successful but we never can tell until its out and tested, so lets wait and see. Thanks for the information.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Well my PR is back to 0 again, I had some for a while, but with the ads on my sites I guess google thought i’m not worth much of anything anymore. And so, I don’t really like PR. And not only because of that, but also because I don’t think backlinks should really measure a site’s worth, either.
I used to use a feed reader but don’t anymore. I had so many feeds I never got to them all! I find most of the sites I read now through Entrecard, especially since they got the great new toolbar!
But I digress… it will be interesting to see if MS BrowseRank works out. All these new ranking systems lately, I wonder if one or two will come out ahead. Granted advertisers need a way to determine the value of a site their ads appear on. But I don’t know what the best answer is.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I personally like the sounds of this new ranking system. Hopefully it will take off. Thanks for this post I hadn’t heard about this before.