Unexplained high pr

[metablue]

A few months ago I built a new site. On its first update, it appeared in the index for a few weeks with a grey bar, then dropped out.

On its second update, it made it into the index for real with a PR6. This really made no sense. I have no PR7+ links to give me a calculated PR6, and only about 30 backlinks altogether. There are only about 10 pages in the site, so it's not internally generated PR.

On the latest update, with very few changes to the backlinks, it has dropped to a PR4. Which seems about right, though I'm not too happy about it.

How could I have gotten a PR6 with about 30 backlinks under PR6? Could Google have made a mistake? Or are other factors at play?

[Brett_Tabke]

Are you sure you don't have more than 30 backlinks? Google only shows those above a certian pr threshold.

[rfgdxm1]

And what is the PR of those 30 backlinks? If a lot are PR5 this could explain the PR6.

[jbauder]

meta, couple things first there was quite some discussion about people dropping 1 notch with the latest update ... brain is a little foggy on the details at the moment ... I do know I checked a site linking to me and they dropped from a 7 to a 6 ...

second, try doing an allinurl:yourdomain.com

If you see a lot more than what you see when you check backlinks, it is likely, you have more links than you thought, just a lower PR than those that are shown in the backlinks (PR3 or PR4)

[metablue]

It's not that there are more links than I think, because I've done all those searches, and when I was actively seeking link exchanges I had a grey bar and mostly got links from sub PR5 sites with a single, very full links page. The PR6 was very surprising because I'd worked on the site for a couple of weekends, left it, and then went on holiday. When I got back ... there it was. As for the drop to PR4, if anything, there should be more backlinks now than when I got the PR6, because links from my site were fairly sought-after over the last month.

I've noticed this in other posts too. One guy is willing to sell his wife for a PR6, and another gets it without trying. It doesn't make sense.

There must be something else to the PR calculation beyond the PR of the linking pages and the number of links on those pages, but I don't know what. After reading part of the "new algo" thread, I realized the backlinks that were added to the top of the list on most pages have moved down as more links were added, and the ones that were added to the bottom of the list on other pages are still there, and perhaps lower links pass now less PR. Still, that might explain a drop, but not the initial PR6.

[Pegasus]

I was in the same position.

Answer: It's not very hard to get a PR6.

[creative craig]

Pegasus dont tell the guy who wanted to sell his wife for PR6 over the weekend ;)

Craig