Google Toolbar PageRank (TBPR) Dead But Real is Still Alive

Google's John Mueller hinted in one of the videos that Google won't be updating any toolbar PageRank in future. This news comes as a shock because earlier Matt Cutts had said that Google will continue to support toolbar PageRank. It seems Google is taking decisions faster than before. Another SEO metric that provided a subtle hint about the quality of a webpage is gone. 

Many of us may have noticed that the PageRank of several sites were not updating since the past few months. Now, we know the reason for it, Google has stopped updating TBPR. There was a time when Google used to update TBPR every 3 months and before DA (Domain Authority), this was the only metric for SEO's to judge the quality of a webpage. But, slowly and gradually, this metric was losing importance and Google didn't wanted webmasters to focus their efforts on increasing TBPR.


Google PageRank FAQ's

Has Google Dropped Page Rank From Their Algorithm?


No. Google still uses Page Rank in its core ranking algorithm. 


What is the Difference Between Toolbar PageRank and Real PageRank?

Google updates real PageRank of sites constantly based on backlinks. But, a public display of PageRank values are available with the help of Toolbar PageRank only. Now, Google has stopped updating the public display of values but internally, it still uses it and updates it regularly.


How Will Google Calculate the PageRank Now ?

PageRank is a calculation of the quality and type of link pointing to an URL. The more and better the quality of backlink, the greater the chances of that webpage to rank higher on the search results. You will get higher PageRank if high PR webpages provide dofollow backlinks to your site.


How to Judge the Quality of a Webpage if PageRank is Gone?

The public display of PageRank is gone. You can still judge the quality of a webpage with the help of Domain Authority which is measure of the popularity of the site. 


PageRank is Still Important!
Google until now says "Pages with higher PageRank are more likely to appear at the top of Google search results." so it is a strong hint that Google still uses PageRank in its main ranking algorithm. We never know what the future holds for us but this move by Google can be seen as an effort to stop PR malpractices rather than ignoring it completely in the ranking evaluation.

Bye Bye Google Authorship

Google authorship was one of the biggest changes that Google did to make the search results come out more cleaner and trustworthy. It moved from anonymous web to known web because of authorship but sooner than expected, the authorship ended rather abruptly. Google at first quietly removed author stats from the Webmasters tools then it finally removed author information from the search results. The authorship markup which did create a storm in the SEO community is no longer supported by Google. See here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6083347?rd=1

Does this mean that authorship once counted as one of the ranking signals is gone? Probably not. One of the reasons, I feel is that Google has demoted the author markup and ignored it from displaying in the front end because of spam. Google wanted to use authorship as a signal for displaying content from reputable authors higher up in the search results because people would have trusted them more. But, there was no surety that the author displayed using the markup is the original creator of the content. 

Also, several of the pictures used in the markp were not original. Hence, the sole purpose of Google was defeated and it had to drop the idea of displaying author information in the search results.

Yes, Google will still count the author rank but only from clearly distinguished authors and not of everyone (this is my personal opinion). Think of authors and industry experts who have a Wikipedia page, Google can easily trust those authors and detect content written by them. Other than that which authors will receive a boost is yet not known. Danny Sullivan also reported that Author rank is fine and should stay alive. 

Well, more concentration should now be put into rich snippets and how well your site is able to utilize its benefits. Yes, structured data and rich snippets are still supported by Google.

Also, Google will continue to display Google Plus posts shared by your friends in your circles in the search results if you are logged in. So, in that case, you might see author information in the search results but those will remain local to your profile only. Please don't get confused with these author snippets as they have a limited local display.

Please note: Google has hinted aboout the use of author rank but never really clarified its stands on using it as a ranking factor. So, the opinion expressed here is my own and not of Google.