2 Google PRs for Home Page

Different PRs for Home Page vs index page

[TCC_Nick]

Our home page recently went from a PR6 to PR0. We can't figure out why, but that's not the question. The question is if we go directly to our URL, the Google PR shows 0, however if we go to the URL/index.cfm we show the PR6. Does this matter? Should we worry about the PR0 diplaying in the Google toolbar when our base URL is visited as opposed to PR6 displaying when the index page is visited? Why does it diplay different values when visiting the exact same page?

[Brett_Tabke]

Sure it matters. If everyone is linking to a pr0 page - who is to say that pr is passing?

[internetheaven]

Here's a more helpful comment on your situation TCC_Nick.

PageRank is passed directly to the landing page that is linked to. So, if all your pages and all your inbound links point to www.example.com/index.html then it is that particular URL that will receive the PageRank.

If all your inbound links were pointing to www.example.com then your base URL would be showing the PR6 right now.

This also happens with re-directs (like 301's), if your site uses a legitimate re-direct code you can pass PR from an original page to the new version.

[polarmate]

Why does it diplay different values when visiting the exact same page?

Hi TCC_Nick, there are different values because Google has no way of knowing that the default document served when visiting your URL is the same as URL/index.cfm. It is supposed to resolve the two over a period of time because of 'duplicate content' but I can't be sure that it does or how long it takes. The better thing to do would be to always link to your URL without the filename of the default document. This has many advantages: Your PR will not be split over the two URLs; you can change your default document from indx.cfm to whateveryouwant.xyz and not lose your rankings or your backlinks.