PRs changed

sites losing Pagerank

[whatson]

A lot of my customers' sites this month lost Pagerank. Some went from 6 to a 4. Others only 4 to a 3 and 5 to a 4.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Has the Pagerank algorithm itself been modified.
One of my customers sites had PR 4 with 300 backward links, it now has 3 with 0 backward links.
Whats going on?

[djgreg1]

same thing with some of my domains. At some domains only haöf of the Backlinks counted on some domains no backlinks counted

[Slade]

1)This was discussed two or three updates ago, as a lot of sites lost PR then.

2)Before going much farther into it, i'd be sure that the update is complete, and stable. A quick check to one of the google dance machines shows the same link counts for yahoo... PR in the toolbar is a little later being updated (generally) and tends to jump around a bit until everythings replicated.

If 2 isn't the answer, we'll see that more people will report in about it real soon now.

One theory brought up before is that PR was overvalued, and Google was just evening it out some. Another theory was that since a lot more dynamic pages are being spidered, the existing PR is now being distributed out more just from the increased number of pages.

[rfgdxm1]

The update most definitely isn't complete. Using one of those Google Dance machines online is still showing the old database in 2 of the 7 datacenters. If backlinks aren't showing that should be showing *at the end of the dance*, that does suggest something is wrong. PLEASE NOTE: Only backlinks of PR4 and above show with the link: command. Thus, if you have 100 PR3 pages linking to a page, and 4 that are PR4+, you'll only see 4 backlinks. That theory of a lot more dynamically generated pages being spidered might be a relevant one. If you or the sites linking to you use dynamically generated pages, the total PR of your site might be the same. It is now just more evenly distributed, where as before it was concentrated on a smaller number of pages.

[whatson]

Maybe PR was overvalued previously, but it seems that now the value may have remained the same, but sites just dont have as high a PR.
I have been looking at a lot of other sites as well, and there has definitely been a lot of drops in Pagerank from almost all.

[Yidaki]

Yes, my pages also lost pr this month. Guess, it's because apple.com removed a link to me from one of their pr8 pages. No joke! Went down -1! However, this is not so bad - i learned again, life is to short. I'll simply try to do some new fabulous thing and beg to get my link back! ;)

[whatson]

That must have been pretty cool having a link from apple.com, a PR 10 site.
Maybe Googleguy could explain why we are losing Pagerank

[hurlimann]

I have seen some our client sites, and ours, go down from 6 to 5. Backlinks etc effectivly the same.

I have seen one competitor go up from 5 to 6 yet still with only 4 external backlinks none more than 5. ( Still to check all their internal pages)

Serp positions only changed on secondary keywords. I reckon they have changed the PR algo.

[Yidaki]

Maybe Googleguy could explain why we are losing Pagerank

that's what i wanted to explain with my previous post: it's been my fold that i lost some of my pr. My content wasn't cool enough to be still linked. Just move on, make something new and try to get back the lost. Don't waste time with pr if google still knows you and in case you're not allready totally lost! :)

("Something new" in the meaning of "something additional, a new sensational hot spot" - i don't mean rebuild anything!)

[kfander]

It hasn't stablized yet, as I've seen differences in PR throughout the day but, unless they finally come to a stop back where they were before, I seem to have suffered an overall net loss in PR. Nothing disastrous, and strangely enough these same sites are doing better on searches than they did when they had a higher PR.

I don't think we can really know where we are until things stop moving.

[hurlimann]

Yidaki agreed that if you lose a good PR 8 link you can expect to go down but across some of the boards here people are reporting losing PR for no obvoius reason.

kfander we too have seen some sites increase position despite a PR drop. This is so for primary keywords. Secondary keywords have dropped.

[whatson]

It seems that PRs may have dropped but it is still the same relatively. As positions have remained similar and competitors sites have also lost PR, even though backward links have remained constant.
So now a PR 5 site might be worth as much as a PR 6 site was a couple of months ago.

[trueMarketing]

I haven't noticed a decrease in my website's PR, only an increase. Word from a friend of mine at Google in Atlanta says that the value of Google's PR rating system is changing slightly due to "overinflated" value given by some reciprocal linking and/or direct links from one site to another.
He gave me several pointers about two months ago b/c he saw this coming and maybe GoogleGuy can confirm (probably not though).

My advise would be to do what I've been doing - creating not just links on other websites, but real theme-based partnerships like the other website carrying some of your content and then pointing back to your website.

I would also start linking to more stable sites if you haven't done so already.

I'll post more later - dinner is ready.

For my sites I have noticed an unresolved PR....Google is still dancing, so we'll see if my friend is correct.

Good Luck @@
b

[fello]

My site has dropped from a PR6 to PR5. Inbound link count dropped according to Google from 396 to 346.

I haven't noticed one of my cometitor's site also dropping.

:(

Anyone else can shed some light on what's going on?

[Powdork]

PLEASE NOTE: Only backlinks of PR4 and above show with the link: command.

My google directory category shows a pr 3 but is listed with the command. Matbe its going up to four but I doubt it.

[pageoneresults]

I believe the PageRank factor has slowly been changing through the past couple of updates. The August update saw quite a few sites take a dramatic increase in PR, We were fortunate to be one of those across the board with all of our sites.

One of the issues that I quickly noticed when PR dropped in September was the value of traffic. When we were sitting at PR8, the traffic was incredible but a good portion of it was not relevant. Now at our current PR, traffic is on target and steadily increasing.

There are many who think PR is the determining factor with Google. I'll agree with that sentiment, but only to a certain degree. As clearly evidenced by various topics that have been discussed here, you can have PR3 and hold the coveted positions for your main keyword phrases. Some have even reported PR0 sites in the top spots.

I feel that recent affairs concerning PageRank may have caused some adjustments with the PR algo. Maybe Google wants to draw the focus away from PageRank for awhile and more towards relevant content. Don't shoot me! I've been reading the irrelevancy threads. ;)