SEARCH MARKETING BLOG

Fake PageRank

Is that kind of like GoogleOn & GoogleOff for Google Search Appliance then Pete? (response to previous blog).


But back to my own topic Fake PageRank…. This is not a new one – but I was just reading recent forum posts about it this morning before I came to work.. and thought I’d talk about it a bit.


Fake PageRank is when a domain owner fiddles with their site to make it show artificially inflated PageRank. It’s implemented by redirecting the GoogleBot to a higher PageRank site, but showing the usual content to human browsers. If you’re suspicious of a page’s PR, then you can go to Google, search for the site, and view the cache. If it’s the cache of a different page – then there’s something fishy going on!


2 reasons people might do this are when selling a domain to make it more expensive or when selling links. So if you happen to be doing something as potentially naughty and frowned upon as buying links – you might want to check the PR is legit.