Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I don't think Google realises that if they lower PR, then webmasters have to add content, redesign (which costs) and basically wastes people's time. Not only this, but PageRank totally governs whether people will do business with sites at all.
It's time someone put Google out of the game once and for all. Pagerank seriously messes with people's websites, successes and lives - it isn't right.
So the PR showing now might be based on the earlier Backward links not the latest one.
I don't think so. I keep track of PR and also backlinks on about 30 sites I manage. The backlinks have steadily decreased over the last year (because Google is reporting less and less) but only once did they revert back to an earlier update a few updates ago. And the only sites that actually increased in backlinks this time were those sites where agressive link gathering was going on (doesn't reflect actual links however). None of those sites dropped in PR and about 1/3 rose in PR.
There is no way to accurately determine how many days /months before... there are a lot or internal pages that are only a few days old that already have PR.
That should be a good determinant of when the update was cut off. I have one client's site that was redesigned and online June 6 and he's been adding pages steadily ever since. Those original pages all have PR (they were non existant before that as he previously only had a home page). Any new pages added after June 29 have no PR. A new custom site went online June 22 and all those pages have PR. So sometime after June 22 and by June 29 may be the cutoff date. If others check their records for new pages this can be narrowed down.
Are there any decent online PR tools which can tell you the PR of more than 1 page at a time?
I use PHPliveSupport where you can add 20 urls at a time and also gives the backlinks.
Mathematical explanation of the PR losings:
There is a much less complicated explanation for those of us who are mathematically challenged --Google Page Rank and How to Get it--explains the logarithmic calculation of Page Rank as far as backlinks are concerned.
I suspect that those who are on the "cusp" of one PR may wobble back and forth depending on the actual links on the update, i.e., a few links can push them over the edge.
I'm so fed up with this PR crap. My site is good, I know it's good and that's all there is to it.
In that case, you don't have to worry about PR. :-)
Google has been controlling people's websites since day 1, and it's all about money for them.
No, it's about delivering quality search results, which is how Google attracts the "eyeballs" that generate revenue for Google and its advertisers. Also, PR is just one of many factors that go into search rankings. (And if you examine Google's search results closely, you'll often find lower-PR pages ranking higher than higher-PR pages.)
I don't think Google realises that if they lower PR, then webmasters have to add content, redesign (which costs) and basically wastes people's time.
Google doesn't "lower" PageRank; PR is determined by a mathematical formula that's based on your incoming links and internal links. If you aren't happy with your PageRank, complain to the owners of Web sites that aren't linking to yours. :-)
You are absolutely right in your conclusions. As more and more sites are indexed the scale increases and PR appears to fall.
I also suspect that another contributing factor to decreasing PR is that the quality of new sites today is better than it was a few years ago. This means that what was once an average site which had a (say) PR5, now is below average and may fall into the PR4 band. In effect there is more competition and you have to fight just to stay still.
what business are you in? If you sell links, I could see it, but otherwise PR itself shouldn't matter.
If you sell links, I could see it, but otherwise PR itself shouldn't matter.
PR seems to also be important in the site buying/selling business - PR has PR value (Public relations) and it affects how visitors/ customers/ other webmasters see your business. It is believed that certain levels of PR influence how often the bot visits. Apart from selling links it's very important for those working on link exchanging. A higher PR comes in handy if anyone 302 hijacks you. There may be one or two other advantages to having a higher PR over a lower one. And, there may still be a small consideration for PR in the algo.
My PR is back to 4, this morning was 0, I hope it stabilises, how about yours?
I don't! but others do..... Which is my point.
There are those out there that assume a business isn't worth dealing with unless it has a certain PR, and I've had emails from site owners requesting these ranks or they won't exchange, so this isn't fantasy.
On checking out their site, many don't even touch mine for quality, services or technology, yet they won't link. It's incredibly difficult to start a company as it is, without decent pagerank, and because of this PR worship mentality, my business suffers as it becomes very tough to get links out there. Thus I cannot grow.
PS - I don't 'sell' links.
This site was all over the top spots before the new year shuffle for various search phrase permutations. Still doing well on Yahoo and MSN so it must be search engine friendly! uk-credit-cards-today.co.uk
My other site has dropped from PR5 to 4 but the BL's are up (by less than 1/4 of those added!) My main competitors' PR remains untouched but their BL's have also risen... Think I'm going to end up with a 4 after all this... creditmarket.co.uk
One thing I would like help on is getting more internal pages cached, they seem to perform better when google knows what's on them! - Equally, pages that are indexed but not cached do appear as BL's....
If only these sites hadn't become my livelihood....
Oh the minefield that is SEO....
The toolbar in IE at home still shows 0. Some PR checker sites show 5 and others show 0.
Why is this and can expect everything to go to 5 or drop down to 0 again. My site is www.friskybits.co.uk. I'd be interested to hear what it shows as in other people's toolbars.
Regards,
Friskybits
In a way I'm happy it got the PR but on the other hand it is just telling me that tomorrow my more established site can take a PR dip...
On checking out their site, many don't even touch mine for quality, services or technology, yet they won't link. It's incredibly difficult to start a company as it is, without decent pagerank, and because of this PR worship mentality, my business suffers as it becomes very tough to get links out there. Thus I cannot grow.
You can grow when you decide to operate your business as a business using real business strategies and not subjugate yourself to the whims of fickle webmasters who buy into every myth that comes down the pike.
BTW, did you know that Google changed the log scale for PR with this update?
My wonderful PR6 site dropped to PR5 :-(
My PR5 dropped to PR4...
Yikes! Help!
Traffic has only been increasing... as well as backlinking... this is sad.
Home Page = PR5
1st Level = PR4 - about 25 pages
All other Pages (about 900) = PR3
Kirby, what do you mean they changed the log scale for PR with this update?
I made it up and was just proving a point:
...not subjugate yourself to the whims of fickle webmasters who buy into every myth that comes down the pike.
I try not to, but lot's follow and obey the PR, as a mark of a site's quality/usefulness or whatever and that has to be taken as a rule to be followed if traffic/advertisers are to view my site as succesful etc. Personally, I don't think PageRank should be viewed or used in this way, but it is.
That's not sensible, but it's a kind of reality and whatever happens to Google or Pagerank, Google's achieved what it's set out to do. I don't believe the Pagerank system's been designed for the good of anyone except Google and the respect for genuinely useful sites is controlled by them. People do judge a site solely by PageRank and that's never been hidden.
I see the toolbar and PageRank as a very clever viral, hypnotic marketing tool. It's powerful, controlling and ensures Google's power for years to come. At the same time it influences people's buying/trust decision making processes - and that's very underhand indeed.
Google loses my vote of confidence, and I don't think for a second they have my interests at heart.
Anyhow, I am REALLY IMPRESSED with your top knotch website and have
already put up a link to it here: hppd://wwe.orkaworka.cum/dorks.tmp
I would like to upgrade it to our PREMIUM service. Please see more information
at hjjk//www.incredidork.php/amazing.fft
Best wishes -slips@ptaaaang.gon
BTW - Although still buried in Google SERPS for some time now since bourbon, our site's main PR is steady at 4. Every other page now shares the main page PR which is 4. They used to average a PR2 or lower since I started using the google tool.
Why do people do these stunts? It's not helpful or funny.
The dot-com boom was over years ago folks. We all have to work for a living just like everyone else.
It doesn't matter what our PageRank is. This only matters to sites who sell advertising based on their pagerank. I assert that's a bad idea.
Instead, you should sell advertising based on your advertisers' return on investment. If an advertiser can make money by advertising on your site, then they will pay to advertise there, and they won't care a whit what your pagerank is. You can raise your price until just below your advertisers' break-even points. If your site delivers the kind of quality, targeted traffic your advertisers need to sell their widgets, they will pay.
I've never considered flogging adspace on my site directly based on PageRank. Instead, if I do it, I will offer limited ad placements that advertisers can use for test marketing. If it works for them, they'll pay for larger placements. If it doesn't work for them, then they're just not the right customer for me, and I'm not the right website for them.
That's how it worked back when I was doing direct mail in the early 90's. When my company started direct mail, they sent test mailings of just a hundred pieces at a time, both to refine our offer and to measure the response of different mailing lists, which we mostly rented from magazines that our target market were likely to read.
By the time I got my job there, we'd be running ten or twenty tests of a thousand pieces all at once, with two full time marketing staff tracking them in a big spreadsheet. It was not uncommon for us to roll out campaigns with one or two hundred thousand pieces all at once. At our peak, a company of ten people grossed three million dollars a year in sales of widgets that retailed for $29.95 or so.
What you need to do to attract advertisers to your website is to emphasize the importance of such market studies, and then make it easy for your advertisers to perform them.
I'm completely convinced that the real reason for the dot-com crash was that many if not most major advertisers failed to do test marketing on the web. Instead, they'd drop a million dollars into banner ads without testing their ads, their offer, or the websites where they placed their ads at all.
Now, back to my first point: what you have to realize is that our competition increases every day. In order to just tread water, we have to invest time and money into our sites continuously. How many commercial websites are there now that didn't exist before the last Google update? How about compared to a year ago? These people are competing for our traffic, and if you want to maintain your income, you have to continuously improve your site so that you can maintain your market share against a steadily increasing pool of competing websites.
But really, I don't find that so bad. I find that what I have to do to maintain interest in my website - write articles - is what I like to do best. Maybe you find that's not the case for you. My suggestion would be to change your focus in such a way that creating content for your site is more enjoyable to you, or at least pays off more from the labor you put in.
If you run a b0ndage p0rn site, you are not likely enjoy your work unless you yourself enjoy b0ndage. Maybe you have more conventional tastes, but found that occupying that niche paid off handsomely in the early days. Maybe your best choice would be to put your current site on autopilot for now while you develop a site that you would find more personally rewarding. Do you like flower gardening? How about a site about flowers? Garden supplies are a huge business you know!
The race we are all in is not to the swift, or to the strong, but to the clever!
How do you pay your bills, with Google PR or with the cash you make from the visitors ;)?
Here's some help: Don't do anything.
