Do pages lose PageRank with more sub-directories?

[PFOnline]

Hi all, I was wondering if pages automatically lose PageRank if you put certain page's of your site in sub directories like this...

www.domain.com/something/more/andmore/page.html

rather than:

www.domain.com/page.html

Because it seems to do this with my site.

Why does PageRank automatically drop for pages in sub-directories?

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[added]
It seems to drop 1 PageRank notch for every sub directory. For example:

www.domain.com/page.html is a PR 5

www.domain.com/directory/page.html is a PR 4

www.domain.com/directory/more/page.html is a PR 3

and so on.
[/added]

[PFOnline]

Oh well, i suppose an easy fix for this would be to not put any files in sub-directories. :)

[Woz]

There have been a few discussions on this topic lately PFOnline. Basically, the PageRank of a page is dependant on the links coming in to that page with a comples formula applied.

However, if Google has not ranked the page as yet, then a guesstimate is made based on "clicks to the page from a ranked page" with each click reducing the pagerank garnished from that ranked page by 1 per click. Often this will by default be a function of directory structure.

You may want to do a search for "pagerank directory structure" (no quotes) to find the previous threads and get more details.

Onya
Woz

<typos and correction>

[edited by: Woz at 5:25 am (utc) on Nov. 29, 2002]

[PFOnline]

Ahh, i see Woz... Makes sense... Thanks :)

[annej]

I think it's more how deep the links go from the high PR page. Usually secondary pages linked from the main page lose a little and pages linked from the secondary pages lose a little more. In my experience it hasn't seemed to matter if the pages linked were in the same directory or a subdirectory.

Also other factors affect page rank so an inner page with related outside links going to it might have a higher PR.

Anne

[Woz]

>an inner page ~~ might have a higher PR.

Exactly. I used robotstxt.org as an example recently. A search should find the thread.

Onya
Woz

[Shoestring]

"It seems to drop 1 PageRank notch for every sub directory."

This has been my experience, for the most part. I have seen exceptions, though.

It seems to depend on the linking structure of the site and where your incoming links point. If you have, for example, a high PR link to one of your subs it *should* raise it a notch above other subs of that level.

The way I link internally generally finds anything I come off the main page with matching the main PR. The next level down drops a point. Drilling down beyond that it varies much more.

A wildcard for us is the privacy page, which is 3rd level and not off the main page, yet currently matches the sites full PR. It used to only rate a PR3, so go figure... Only thing that makes sense to me is the fact that it has so many more internal links vs. the other 3rd level subs. That, or maybe we picked up a PR6 link to it that I don't know about... ;)

[chiyo]

annej is completely correct from our experience. Its not the directory that counts at all, it's the number of clicks away from the index page for spreading page rank and the incoming links (both internal and external)

You can have a page 4 directories deep, but if its linked directly from your index page, it has the same chance of getting PR than if it was 1, 2, or 3 directories deep.

[chiyo]

//thats assuming your index page is your highest PR page which is usually the case in normal cases.

[instand1]

Annej and Chiyo are right: With each click away from the page with the highest PR a page has "a little lower" PR. Therefore: With sites with less than 10 pages: Have links from the homepage to all pages. With sites with more than 10 pages: Have a link to a sitemap linking to all pages. What I am not sure about: For very big sites: Is it better to have several sitemaps? Most likely, since PR passed on to another page depends not only on the PR of the "giving" page, it depends also on the number of links on the giving page. Several sitemaps with 10 outgoing links should pass on more PR than one with 100 outgoing links. (don't forget to have links on ALL pages back to the homepage and the sitemap(s).