If you are one of thosemarketers who use Google PageRank toolbar frequently then you must have noticed that the Google PageRank is not showing since last few days. Here is why:

“Google removed the 1-10 PageRank scores from the toolbar feeds last Friday i.e., 15, April’2016.”

Google has officially confirmed SearchEngineLand that they have removed Toolbar PageRank. They have completely cut the data from the Google toolbar and various other tools that fetch PageRank score. This means that if you’re using any tool or browser to check PageRank of a website, it will not show any data at all.

Last weekend, lots of queries were reported over the internet, people asking that where the PageRank has gone. Well, the truth is that PageRank still exists, but its Toolbar version has gone forever.

Here is what you see now when you visit any website with the Google Toolbar enabled in Windows Firefox.
Google clarified that the company still uses PageRank data internally within the ranking algorithm, but the external PageRank values shown on the Toolbar will not be available from now onward.

Since last few years Google haven’t updated the PageRank scores in Google Toolbar, but in the meantime they were also trying to demote the value of PageRank.

Post PageRank Score

Well, Google’s PageRank is going to be a secret. Only Google will know the exact score of a webpage. According to Google, removal of PageRank will not have any effect on websites i.e., how they appear in search. Digital marketers can use search console (WebMaster) to get complete information about their website in Google Search, including information about all the links pointing to their sites. Removing the PageRank display from Toolbar will avoid confusing webmasters and users about the significance of the metric.

What Digital Marketers Should do to Judge the Authority of a Site

Many tools and extensions are available that were designed to show PageRank score. Since these tools fetch data from Google PageRank toolbar, it is believed that these tools have stopped working.

The removal of PageRank score toolbar may cause digital marketers to find alternatives to know how authoritative pages are really. Marketers can use Moz tool, OpenSiteExlorer to find domain authority of a website. This tool offers tremendous amount of information about the links to any page or site.

As now PageRank is no longer available, it will not be wrong to say that page rank isn’t the only thing that is needed to determine the quality of a website. We’ve got to wait and see how things shape up after this update from Google. We will keep you posted on the latest trends of digital marketing. In the meanwhile, let us know what you think about this update from Google.

Share your thoughts in the comments below!