As of this writing, Typhoon Jangmi (Philippine name: Ofel) just evolved into a monstrous Category 5 Super Typhoon with winds packing up to 250 kph (155 mph) and roars toward the general direction of Southern Taiwan — but that is not exactly the news that I’m awestruck with.

Feels like more than a Super Typhoon, Google finally blew this blog’s remaining PageRank (PR) to dust: from PR2 to PR0. Now, the changes just took place three days since it reduced my PR4 to PR2. What the heck is going on with Google PageRank technology? While I’m not focusing my writings to build a PageRank (PR) anymore, Google is still the master of search engines and my blog’s traffic and reputation highly relies on it. However, their PageRank technology stinks: it’s out of schedule, it’s show-stopper, and definitely depressing.

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I was speechless today when I saw that this blog’s Google PageRank (PR) shrunk from PR4 to PR2. I just got PR4 two months ago and I can still remember the post that I did and how happy I was to see that. It seems that Google’s Toolbar update today was pretty much out of schedule as they are known to update PageRank gauge every three to four months. This blog used to get PR 3 last April, then it rose to PR 4 last July 26, and now that my PR moved again (or slapped) to 2 — I realized it’s just been two months since the last update? What say you, Google?

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It always feels good when hard work pays off. In my case, I’ve been running this blog for almost five months now and today for the first time, Google’s second quarter PageRank (PR) update for 2008 finally brought PR3 to this blog. PageRank is Google’s view of how important the pages of my blog are and they somehow influence advertisers with their own Web standards.The PageRank gauge can be seen when you install Google Toolbar on your web browser.

Wikipedia defines PageRank (PR) as:

…a link analysis algorithm that 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.

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Well basically that’s the usual million dollar question of novice web entrepreneurs when they want to move their sites to a new host. The risks of losing good Page Ranks (PR) and Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) position, are typically the things they carefully consider before initiating the transfer. So, does moving to a different host affect your site’s search engine optimization?

Theoretically the answer is “no.” Moving from one host to another does not affect SEO. However, if you are not careful enough and you fail to follow instructions your sites could face risks of defeating your SEO. The impact largely depends on the actual transition process from your old host to a new one but utmost it depends on you.

Downtime is commonly the major issue you may face when you change to a new web host.

Downtimes, for sure, are not healthy for your search engine-optimized websites, especially when it is prolonged. During downtimes, search engine spiders fail to crawl your site’s web pages and thus affect your pages’ SERP ranking when the search engine begins to re-index all downloaded pages by spiders to provide fast searches. Downtime is commonly the major issue you may face when you change your host. The good thing is that the chance of experiencing a downtime can be prevented. A good host would always suggest the following steps to provide your sites a smooth and transparent transition from your old to new host:

1. If you are moving a domain name to your new host as well, unlock your domain name from your old host/ registrar and provide your new host the EPP/authorization code. This will let them initiate domain name transfer request to your old host/registrar. If you are only moving a site or sites between hosts and does not involve domain name registrars, proceed to Step 2.
2. Set up your website on your new web host. Begin by adding your domain name in your new host’s control panel. Copy all your files to appropriate domain folder and copy necessary databases from your old host to your new host to “mirror” your existing website. You can test/view the files you upload to your new host by typing into your browser your domain name alias. If you don’t know about this, ask your new host’s live chat support.
3. Change your domain’s name server configuration (DNS) and point it to your new web host. After completing this step, your site should still be accessible online and still running from your old web host while the new DNS settings are propagating on the Internet.

The common pitfall in the process is when you take down the site on the old web host while the DNS is still propagating – definitely it would cause downtime for your site. It’s when the SEO risks come in. To prevent that to happen, keep your website files on your old web host for one week. This ample time lets the DNS propagation to complete which can be identified by monitoring where your website files are pointing to. If your domain is finally pointing to the files on your new web host, then the site transfer is done and complete. You can now take down the site from your old web host and enjoy the services of your new web host preserving your site’s PR rank and SERP position.

Braindump Exams: Preparing for 350-001 is a piece of cake, especially after one has done tests like 70-290 and 70-649. Still a small number fails to go for 70-270. The reason told is that majority skips 646-204 as well.