The question of whether or not Google Toolbar PageRank is dead has come back around, as Google’s Matt Cutts indicated the other day that we’re not likely to see an update before the end of the year.
This Twitter exchange occurred on Sunday (via Barry Schwartz):
@NielsBoschh I would be surprised if that happened.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) October 6, 2013
Google hasn’t updated it since February, after historically updating it every three or four months.
The latest Webmaster Help video from Google has come out, and it just happens to talk about Google Toolbar PageRank. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really tell us anything new. It’s pretty much the same thing Cutts said last time he did a video on it.
He says, “The thing to remind yourself about is that the Google Toolbar PageRank, number one, it’s only updated periodically, so, you know, for a while, we would update it relatively often. Now, we’ll update it a few times a year. Over time, the Toolbar PageRank is getting less usage just because recent versions of Internet Explorer don’t really let you install toolbars as easily, and Chrome doesn’t have the toolbar so over time, the PageRank indicator will probably start to go away a little bit.”
“But it’s also the case that we only update this information every few months, so it does take time in order to show up,” he says.
The messaging here is a little odd considering, again, that there hasn’t been an update since February, and we shouldn’t expect to see one before the end of the year.
Update: Cutts notes that the video was recorded several months ago:
@CCrum237 recall that we recorded that video several months ago.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) October 8, 2013
Image: Google