Beyond PageRank: Graduating to actionable metrics

[djbaxter]

Beyond PageRank: Graduating to actionable metrics
by Susan Moskwa, Google Webmaster Central Blog
Thursday, June 30, 2011

Like any curious netizen, I have a Google Alert set up to email me whenever my name is mentioned online. Usually I get a slow trickle of my forum posts, blog posts, and tweets. But by far the most popular topic of these alerts over the past couple years has been my off-handed mention that we removed PageRank distribution data from Webmaster Tools in one of our 2009 releases.

The fact that people are still writing about this almost two years later?usually in the context of ?Startling news from Susan Moskwa: ...??really drives home how much PageRank has become a go-to statistic for some webmasters. Even the most inexperienced site owners I talk with have often heard about, and want to know more about, PageRank (?PR?) and what it means for their site. However, as I said in my fateful forum post, the Webmaster Central team has been telling webmasters for years that they shouldn't focus so much on PageRank as a metric for representing the success of one?s website. Today I?d like to explain this position in more detail and give you some relevant, actionable options to fill your time once you stop tracking your PR!

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