Remember that Google ranks individual pages not sites. This is why I always recommend a clean design, which gives every page the same chance. Some database driven web sites don't allow for this and even some marketing people don't agree. When you are looking to dominate competitive markets you need to apply this.

This change occurred after Google has voiced its dislike of the purchase of paid links for the reason of influencing natural search results. Business models have been based on the buying and selling of links for the purpose of gaining rank.

Many opinions had been made that these two events are connected and they effect the ranking of web sites. This is common opinion in the internet marketing area and provides a distorted view of the world. Only an assessment of a specific site can provide us real, measurable information.

One site that lost a large measure of its PR (Page Rank) from a rating of 10 to 6 is statcounter.com In a keyword count statcounter has over 3129 to keyword ranking listings. One of the No 1 ranked keywords, is "web stats".

Based on the Gtrends tool from the keyword research site, Wordtracker.com, this word receives 18750 estimated searches per month in Google. Statcounter has kept it's top ranking both before and after the update.

This brings us the conclusion that the reduction of page rank change was more of just a reshuffle of authority, rather than a change of how Google ranks web sites. Other sites that sell paid links have had similar results.

Its important to have measurable, real information based on facts rather that the guidance of a vastly out of date tool, like page rank. I make it my goal to educate on numbers rather than opinion of the masses.

Online their are many sites who state they are on SEO, however they is such opinion floating around that you never know where the truth comes- beware the opinion it will drive you crazy. Numbers don't lie, if its your bank account or in your traffic and sales conversion.