Jeremy Zawodny declares "PageRank is Dead". For the unititiated, PageRank is Google's method for determining website relavence. Jeremy writes that the days of PageRank are numbered because bloggers, among others, have learned how to game the system.

Though, I think Jeremy's got it wrong. Just because PageRank has been around a couple years and just because Google does not produce consistent results does not mean it is teatering on irrelavence. It simply means that it needs some tweaking, and I have a good feeling this is exactly what Google is currently working on. There has been a lot of chatter lately about blogging and its effects on Google, and its only natural that Google must and will adapt. Certainly there is more to Google than just the PageRank formula. I'm sure there are many different parameters and its just time to add and fiddle with them.

Jeremy and I agree that Google has a hard problem to solve, but in my estimation its just a small subset of the PageRank paradigm. I don't think it calls for something as new and revolutionary as PageRank was. Further, I just see the general sense of the blog entry as "Orlowskian"-- making a grand internet-related claim to generate traffic. And based on the responses he received, it seems most are merely preoccupied with their own modding down of their own name in Google's results. Thus, what's in a name? If PageRank gets a tweaking, is it not still to be called PageRank?

One responder to his blog definitely got it right. A google search for search engine doesn't even return Google first. Obviously, that just tells you its a work in progress.

By Gary at 08:34 PM in Sci/Tech | Comments (5)