What happened to my PageRank?

January 4, 2007

As recently as a month or so ago, I used to have a PageRank of 5/10. Now it is at 2/10! Did I do it with my holiday redesign? Or is this part of some other Google anomalies that others were complaining about? Granted, I did redesign my site over the holidays using a custom WordPress theme built on top of the YUI Reset/CSS/Grid resources. But if anything, I thought that I made things a little cleaner and more SEO friendly. I even added the Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress v2 to the site!

While I was kind of happy to see the 5/10 rank, I always thought that it seemed a little high. I’m sure it had something to do with getting linked to directly from Gadgetopia on several different posts. Hmmm. Gadgetopia used to have a PageRank of 6/10. Now they are showing up as 3/10. I definitely think something is up. … 2 minutes later … Gadgetopia is back up to 6/10.

Unfortunately, I’ve got too many variables at play to even begin to isolate or determine what is going on. My major site re-design is one variable. The fact that I uninstalled the Google Toolbar yesterday and just re-installed it an hour ago could be another. Who knows? Could just be an anomaly. I’ve seen my ego search for matt smith go from the 19th result to not showing in the top 500 and then back again within a day.

Popularity: 26% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under Google | Leave a Comment 

Unexpected Passport To Fun and Shopping Essentials Charges

January 3, 2007

I received Quicken 2007 Deluxe for Christmas this year and am in the process of getting everything set up. When I was importing my wife’s credit card transactions, I kept seeing charges for $14.95 for Passport To Fun and Shopping Essentials. OK, so the names were actually mangled up with a phone number but you know what I mean. I asked my wife what they were for and she had no clue but that she would find out. In the meantime, a quick Google search on those terms brought bad news. I haven’t done full research into either, nor have I attempted to get any money back, but it appears that they are some kind of fine-print rip-off.

Andymatic reported Passport To Fun almost a year ago and has 250 comments from various other people who are also getting the charge. Rip-off Report has a number of entries related to Shopping Essentials. Sidenote: Rip-off Report has a Java applet scrolling news window. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those on a site!

Since I haven’t read the entries on either site in detail, nor have I done my due diligence to get to the source of these charges, it does seem that they are coming bundled with legitimate online purchases or as free 30 day offers. Unfortunately, you have to read the fine print to find out about the charges and that they are recurring, etc. No wonder those business cards were free! I knew it was too good to be true.

Popularity: 39% [?]

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Posted by Matt Smith | Filed Under General | 10 Comments 

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