Google, for online businesses, has the impact that Alan Greenspan once had on the financial markets. Online companies pounce on every whisper or cryptic comment from Google about how it ranks pages as an indicator–up or down–of how online traffic will flow for millions of Web sites.On Thursday, Web site administrators for major sites including the Washingtonpost.com, Techcrunch, and Engadget (as well as Forbes.com) found that their “pagerank”–a number that typically reflects the ranking of a site in Google results for key search terms–had dropped precipitously according to Google Toolbar, a software program that tracks Google’s assessment of a site.
www.forbes.com/technology/2007/10/24/google-web-traffic-tech-cx_ag_1024google2.html