There is a war happening online. It’s only heard by bloggers and those in that circle, but it is loud if you are listening. A well-known ranking system has stalled and great blogs are being left behind in the battle for readers and monetization.
I’d like to say that the Google PageRank (PR) system is dying, but I wouldn’t know since I cannot find any official updates. I can say that many of my favorite blogs have been waiting for months for a PR update that does not seem to be coming. It is time to look elsewhere for our coveted ranks – it is time to take a closer look at MozRank (MR).
What is MozRank?
Have you heard of MozRank? According to SEOmoz, “mozRank is SEOmoz’s link popularity metric that shows how popular (in terms of links) a webpage is on the web.” In short, the more links a page gets, especially from bigger sites, the higher its MR will be. I appreciate the simplicity.
Why Use MozRank?
Okay, I’m not going to mince words here. My blogging income is directly determined by my rank and I am supremely frustrated that people are judging me by a system that hasn’t updated in months and months!
As my reader, you may not be as moved as I am when it comes to my blogging income, but please understand that I want to dedicate all of my time to making this site better for you. I can only do that full time if I can grow my blogging income to $30,000 or more a year. PR is hurting my bottom line and that is severely limiting the possibility of blogging full time by 2012!
I want my site judged based on the quality of my writing and how much passion I have for blogging. Since there just isn’t a system in place for that, I want to be judged by an unbiased entity that will accurately state the facts and update frequently. Hello MozRank!
Website Grader
I came across MozRank when I used Websitegrader.com to check on the stats of BFS. Here are the summarized results for Budgeting in the Fun Stuff:
Ranks 48,399 of the 3,046,125 websites that have been ranked so far.
Website Grade: 98
MOZ Rank: 5
Traffic Rank: 49,953
Blog Grade: 97
Google Indexed Pages: 1,380
Readability Level: Secondary/High School
Inbound Links: 30,495
Twitter Grade: 83
Conclusion
I need to work on Twitter, but otherwise I seem to be on track. You can check out the archives for my blog statistics for more info if you’d like some more numbers for BFS. 
I want MozRank to be the go-to ranking system from now on! Who’s with me?!
Other Blog Posts that are Calling for More Moz in the Mix:
Invest It Wisely – How Mozrank is Filling in the Gaping Hole Left by the Departure of Pagerank
Everyday Tips and Thoughts - mozRank vs. PageRank- What Is The Better Way To Measure The Value Of A Website?
Buy Like Buffett – Page Rank Schmage Rank
Faithful With A Few – Moz Rank - The Reliable Alternative to Page Rank
Saving Money Today – The Death of Google PageRank
Money Green Life – mozRank is the new PageRank
Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance – Moz Rank, Competition, & Links
Money Cone - Read Me, Link Me, Rank Me!
The College Investor – How Google Violates its Own Corporate Philosophy and How it Hurts the Little Guy
Buck Inspire – MozRank: Drop that Zero and Get With the Hero
Raven - Goodbye PageRank, hello mozRank
Lindsay Blogs – Move Over PageRank, mozRank is Here!
Funny About Money – MozRank is the New Page Rank
Is this another site that requires you to put a thingee on your toolbar first?
I’m sure if the current system is becoming obsolete, someone’s going to come in and fill the gap soon enough.
I’ll have to see where I fall.
I’m right there with you Crystal. Since google is no longer updating page rank, moz rank is pretty much the only game in town. Especially for those of us who unfortunately launched our blogs right at the time that the last page ranks where posted.
I’m permanently stuck on 0 even though I’ve drastically reduced my alexa and have a moz rank of 4.
I love you and your blog Crystal – to me Google PR is still the system of choice. That said, I have never put more weight than a sand grain on PR rankings, and recommend that one does not.
I agree when you mention your blogging income is dependent on your rank, but that is not PR is it? I’d think it is your index rank (how high you appear on engines when surfers search for keywords your blog is optimized for). Does a PR system give you any indication of this?
@First Gen, nope, no toolbars needed.
@Car Negotiation Coach, I was lucky enough to get a PR2 right before they stopped seeming to update, but I still rather be judged by a system that is updated frequently.
@Sunil, I’m so happy that you love my site! I’m a huge fan of you as well!
Each advertiser uses a different way to determine how much they will pay for an ad. So far, I’ve had a few advertisers rely on Alexa and a few rely on Wisebread, but the majority rely on PR…it’s just so easy to do a PR check for every site, so that’s the system they choose to use. I want them to try out Moz for a while instead, lol.
Let’s hope that people start taking mozRank more seriously, as it’s good to have competition. Thanks for the mention!
Here is mine, still pretty sad.
Website Grade 79
Moz Rank n/a
Google Indexed Pages n/a
Traffic Rank 248,363
Blog Grade 14
Inbound Links 1,556
del.icio.us Bookmarks N/A
I heard that google’s still going to use pagerank, but they aren’t going to release the numbers publicly anymore. Or at least that’s the version of the rumors I’ve been hearing…
Personally, I like MozRank, it’s a great measuring stick for how well your site is going!
Cool Website
9,336 of the 3,058,427
Website – 99
Blog Grade – 97
Indexed pages – 1104
Moz – 5
Inbound links – 29,727
@Invest It Wisely, thanks for participating!
@retireby40, you’ll make it! I never ran my stats on stuff like this in the beginning, lol, because I didn’t want to see the results.
But, at least you’ll know how much you’ve improved in a couple of months!
@Money Reasons, what’s the use of advertisers using a system that won’t be public? Sheesh.
@Evan, nice! Congrats on such great results!
If Google stops releasing page rank, than another measuring stick will come to the top for advertisers. I think MozRank is a great alternative.
Crystal,
I’m trying to figure out the MozRank thing and so I’m thankful you decided to write about it.
Google Page Rank is the system Google uses, right?
If that is the case here is my thinking …
Advertisers buy text links because they want to rank in the Google rankings. There is no better way than to buy links on pages with higher rankings in Google. They use the Google system to improve their Google rankings. I think there is no way around that.
If that is the case I might not matter what system we promote because people will still use the system that serves them best. Since Google is the search engine GIANT then I think people will continue to use it. Now if Google starts to rely on MozRank then we will see a serious shift, but in the meantime I think that BIG-G is going to rule the search world with their Page Rank.
Crystal, I think that if a “ranking” system hasn’t been updated in eons, it’s utterly useless. Or at least close to that. I’m in your boat to some degree, in that I’m getting a fair amount of traffic but am negatively impacted by PR not being publicly updated in a long time. I find it interesting how advertisers STILL look to a ranking that hasn’t been updated in so long. Truly ineffective, or suboptimal at the minimum. At least MozRank keeps current, which is a huge plus. I would think advertisers would strongly consider that.
@Kay Lynn, woot for the bandwagon!
@Craig, Moz shows the google stats as well (like links), just not PR flat out. I think Google has a ton of power too, but they obviously are letting their public PR ranking system die or they’d take the time to update it. As PR0 sites grow to the point where they can’t be ignored, everybody will be looking for a ranking system that makes sense.
@Squirrelers, I hope people clue in to the problem soon!
This seems recent and was interesting: Goodbye PageRank, hello mozRank http://raventools.com/blog/goodbye-pagerank-hello-mozrank/ #Yakezie #Pagerank #Mozrank
@Kevin, thanks! I’m adding Raven to my list.
I’m with you! I noticed that there’s some PRs that should be higher (or lower) and it seems like Google is slacking as far as updating it. Let’s have a push for Moz Rank being the primary go-to ranking system
I found this post to be really informative. Of course no one “officialy” chases page rank but with the declining number of PR updates there has to be some source of authoratitive measure of the value of a page. It does look like mozrank has a future here with the decline of Google page-rank, thanks
@Briana, “slacking” is the perfect word for it!
@Blog Design, you’re welcome.
PageRank is an algorithim google invented that assesses the strength of a website. The algorithim evaluates a site on a scale of n/a to 10 with 0 being the lowest/weakest and 10 being the highest/strongest. We can check our site’s rank by using a checker pagerank tool.
Nice post. This is very interesting.
Like you, I’ve been feeling pretty frustrated with Google’s PR. When FaM’s PR dropped from 5 to 3 for no discernible, I was less than pleased; learning that this happened to a whole lot of other sites didn’t help my mood. And it’s really annoying that no matter what happens with other ranking systems, which at times are fairly high and at others tend to slide, PR doesn’t budge. Highly questionable, IMHO, whether PR has any meaning at all.
The MOZ ranking, which I won’t bore you with, is a great deal more cheering.
Thanks for including me. Hopefully if we all ban together we can solve this problem. I encourage everyone to post their own take on this PageRank problem. Let’s go MozRank!
Very interesting article. Thanks for the tips. Do you have to pay to get a “Moz Rank” though?
@Roy, oh no, it’s automatically assigned just like PageRank…it’s just updated more…
Ahh, I guess I just haven’t been ranked yet
Ah ha, I started on Blogger a year ago but just switched to my own domain last month. Using my old URL I get a rank of 3. Thanks for the help!
This is a system we have used for almost 2 years now. I’m glad I found it back then. The issue is letting others know about it. Most people still rely on page rank but I hope that MozRank becomes the new standard.. and soon!
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