SEO Optimization Specialist

Over the past couple of toolbar exports of page rank most in the business have noticed it seemed to get easier to get a high rank.  It seems this has cheapened Googles image and now they have tweaked the algorithm to make getting a high page rank a lot tougher.  Over the past 24 hours it appears many sites have taken a PR dive.  Here is a prelimanary list of some of the sites effected:

pegasusdirectory.com (PR3 from PR5)
linkcentre.com (PR3 from PR5)
suntimes.com (PR7 to PR5)
addurl-free.com(PR3 from PR5)
Engadget (from 7 to 5)
AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)
Problogger (from 6 to 4)
Copyblogger (from 6 to 4)
Search Engine Journal (from 7 to 4)
Quick Online Tips (from 6 to 3)
Forbes.com (from 7 to 5)
SFGate.com (from 7 to 5)
joystiq.com/ (PR6 to PR4)
tuaw.com/ (PR6 to PR4)
linux.org  (PR6 from PR9)
accessify.com  (PR5 from PR9)
irt.org   (PR4 from PR8)
brajeshwar.com  (PR4 from PR7)
GoGuides.org  (3 from 5)

Some are shouting that this is some sort of penalty but I think it is just an algorithm tweak.  There seems to be many sites effected that don’t buy or sell links so without an official statement from Google we might never know for sure.  One thing for sure is you can expect to see much fewer PR6+ sites around the web.