A few days ago I published an article about the latest update to the Google Toolbar that dropped the page rank of many websites, including this one. My initial reaction was, like many people across the internet, panic. I was (erroneously) falling to the same frame of mind that I have combated in others for a couple years—that page rank is not ultimately important (as opposed to things like traffic and return visitors). I am sure that there is some kind of value to page rank… but in the end it is too abstract to be of any real value to casual observation.

The fact is, at least in my own case, the loss in page rank did not have a negative impact on my traffic. A week after my new record-low page rank, I had one of the highest traffic days ever. Considering the fact that one of my largest referrers is Google, I was perplexed. I couldn’t help but feel a little disdain about seeing the really small amount of green showing in the Google Toolbar’s rank of my page; but as the days passed and traffic seems to be fine… I decided that there must be something missing in my equation. I know that Google is trying to cut down on the tactic of buying page rank with paid links, and I understand their rationale. A reduction in how the Google Toolbar displays a page’s rank will certainly cut that out (for those of use hit by the cut) but I really expected a little more of a cut in traffic.

My vanity still doesn’t like the new page rank. But I did find a solution to the Google Page Rank dilemma: go into the Google Toolbar options and turn of the Page Rank display. That, or uninstall it altogether. I did that… and now the whole dilemma is gone.