Google's PageRank calculates a website's prominence and value based on its importance within the Internet as a whole.
Recently, prominent websites like SFGate.com, Forbes.com and WashingtonPost.com all saw their PageRank drop from being seven to five. In addition, Engadget.com dropped from seven to five and Joystiq.com dropped from six to four. At least a dozen other highly ranked sites lost ground in Google's PageRank system.
Google recently announced that it would penalize sites that sell links, but not all of the penalized sites sell links. Some belong to blog networks, which share traffic among several sites.
Google has made no formal announcement about the PageRank algorithm, but regardless of what's behind the shakeup, adult industry professionals told XBIZ they're ready for anything.
Many industry professionals declined to comment on this story because of the sensitive nature of the information involved. Search-engine optimization is a big business, and most industry pros didn't want to risk giving up any trade secrets.
Jeff Random, president of marketing agency 3ob.com, told XBIZ that PageRank's importance lies in its perception.
"In the sense that it can affect the perceived value of a link, it matters to some people," he said.
One anonymous industry professional told XBIZ that despite the importance of PageRank, having a low one shouldn't make or break a company.
"Whatever changes Google makes, we're all going to adapt to it," he said. "That's the field we're playing on. [PageRank] matters to some, but it's not the end-all, be-all. If you maintain a lot of sites, some will go up while others go down."