Random Thoughts

PageRank is Googles way of assigning a value to your real estate blog or website based upon its perceived authority. While Google calculates PageRank continuously based on complex algorithms, it only updates the Google PageRank toolbar (data centers) about every three to four months. Want to find out what your current PageRank is, what it should be at the next toolbar update and when that update will be? Read on!

According to Wikipedia, PageRank is a link analysis algorithm which assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E).

Google uses a complex algorithm to determine the value or PageRank of each web page on the Internet. Google ranks pages from a value of 0 (zero) the lowest, to 10 (ten) the highest with large authority sites like Google itself, MSN and Ebay having the highest page rank. Once you reach a PR 6, you are considered an authority site. Page Rank for is mostly determined by the total number of outside links coming to the site. The higher your PR, the more often your blog or website will get spidered and indexed.

Shout out of the day goes to this Matt Cutts Q&A post on Page Rank

How often does Google update PageRank?

PageRank is updated about every three months, but that is not a hard, fast rule. Thus far, the longest wait between updates has been 122 days. The last major PageRank update was reported in late September 2006. An indicator of a major PageRank update is that Googles various data centers report varying numbers for a single sites PageRank. Some data centers will report 0s when they are being reset for the next update.

To see if your site is reporting fluctuation in PageRank across data centers, visit Ezer.com.

Want to see what your real estate blog or website is predicted to rank at during the next PageRank update? Check out this cool PageRank predictor from iwebtool.

Check out this site that predicts the date of PageRank updates and chronicles all past PageRank updates. They predict that on January 28, Google will update its PageRank.

Does an update in Page Rank affect SERP?

No. According to Matt Cutts, "By the time you see newer PageRanks in the toolbar, those values have already been incorporated in how we score/rank our search results. So while you may be happy to see that the Google Toolbar shows a little more PageRank for a given page, its not as if that causes a change in search results at that point. So, you wont see any search engine result page (SERP) changes as a result of this PageRank exportthose changes have been gradually baking in since the last PageRank export."

How can I increase my Page Rank at the next Update?

Its all about the quality and quantity of quality backlinks. Just build them and PageRank will come. For example, since the RSS Pieces launch in August of 06, we have built our backlinks to almost 10,000 which puts us securely at a PR 6 at the next update. Quality backlinks are considered links from other pages back to your that have a comparable or higher PageRank than your own site.

Need for Speed: Undercover is the twelfth installment of the popular racing video game series Need for Speed, developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. It is set for release on all current generation consoles, the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows on 21 November 2008

The game will feature international movie star, Maggie Q , as one of the lead characters of the game. The live-action sequences from Carbon and Most Wanted will return in Undercover. Police chases from previous installments will also return, as well the new Highway Battle mode.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has stated that the previous release in the series, ProStreet, was "an okay game... It's not good." and that Undercover will bring better innovations and gameplay. He has stated Undercover has a considerably longer development cycle than its predecessors since the Need for Speed development team is now split up into two teams, both of which will work on a 24 month development cycle with future titles, alternating releases between them. Riccitiello has stated he was "torturing" the development team with a tight development cycle in the past. When this change was implemented in mid-summer 2007, one team started working on Undercover (giving it only a 16.5 month development cycle), while the other team finished ProStreet and then started working on the next title. This title has not been revealed and will be released in 2009, after a full 24 months of development.
Riccitiello also stated Undercover is taking inspiration from action films such as The Transporter, with a large embedded narrative.

Frank Gibeau (president of the EA Games label) has stated that due to the fact that the sales of ProStreet didn't live up to EA's hopes for the game, the Need for Speed franchise will go back to its roots with a number of features, including open-world racing and a new highway battle mode.
John Doyle (developer at EA Black Box) has hinted Undercover will feature a brand new game mechanic and a "Most Wanted-ish" sandbox style of gameplay.

Plot

The game's story mode sets the player in the story as a police officer going undercover into the criminal underground of Tri-city, a fictional city where the game is set. The player's only contact to the police is Chase Linh, played by Maggie Q. The gameplay is supposed to allow the player to make Hollywood-style stunts and driving moves, making him 'feel like a hero'. Tri-city is a free-roam area, and the advancement in the story mode is mission-based.


Police

Little Information has been released about Undercover's police system, but it is confirmed by EA that Nissan GTRs and helicopters will be some of the police vehicles. As seen in the screenshots, Ford Mustang GTs and the Crown Victoria-based police car from Most Wanted will be included too.