PR dropped 3 points - possible causes?

[sem_scotty]

my site's PR dropped 3 points - anyone have a list of possible causes (and perhaps fixes to address those problems)?

[Stefan]

It could be canonical (the same page listed with different URL's).

It could be that your incoming links have been recently devalued. If your site only had that PR in the first place because of being part of a link-farm (whether extended or local), maybe G caught on and the game is up.

[Stefan]

Sorry, Scotty. That last post of mine might have been rather harsh.

If the PR drop is limited to your home page, check into the canonical stuff. It might be that simple and easily corrected (although it can take a few months to work its way through G). There are plenty of threads on it here, and suggested methods to take care of it.

[Rosalind]

For a large drop like that, I would suspect that your page was relying a lot on one high-PR link for most of its PR. A single link from a page of PR 7 or over can have a profound effect. If that site owner then goes and drops your link, implements a nofollow tag, or gets banned, it could cause your page to lose PR.

[larryhatch]

Don't forget the possibility of real (or even perceived) duplicate content.
I'm not casting asparagus here, but huge numbers of sites simply copy content from other sites,
and they can get severely dinged for it. -Larry

[janethuggard]

This thread is old. I suspect the PR is back to normal now.

[sem_scotty]

not yet, altho i have seen it fluctuate some. seems that google is doing some PR adjustment for my site and a few others.

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[Eazygoin]

PR can change depending on the DC you are watching on. Some of the DC's are showing older PR [pre Jagger]

If I run Firefox browser, with Google Toolbar, and the SearchStats Firefox extension, the two PR bars often show different PR for the same webpage. I can only assume this is becuase they are working from different IP addresses, or one is at fault :-)

[Stefan]

He dropped 3. If some databases are showing the old PR, at the higher level, and some are showing the new PR, at the lower level, anyway you look at it, it's not good.

[indias next no1]

my 2 websites's PR fluctuating for the past 1 month, today also my 2 websites down from 4 to 3 and 4 to 0 respectively, and just now back to normal, but at the same time my other websites and my competitors websites does not have any fluctuation. reason?

[tedster]

I assume we're talking about PR for the Home Page. It might be important to know if internal pages also reflect this major drop.

Home Page PR dropping three points to a non-zero number (I'm assuming this) is probably related to the sites that link in. If the inbound links are heavily of one type (many purchased links, or links from blogs for instance) it's very possible that the important link sources for the site no longer pass PR -- hence PR for the Home pAge itself itself drops. At least this is the first avenue I'd check out.

However, if the drop is to PR0, then the domain itself is probably getting penalized. Internal page PR would reflect this.

[tedster]

Another thought -- has this site gone through major server config changes recently? Or site navigation changes?

[indias next no1]

tedster : regarding my website, i started the new website on sep 2005, it is film news website with quality content and good navigation structure, i got PR 4 within 3 months and i have not made any restructure, just adding new webpages on the same layout with quality content. i can't find any reason for dropping from 4 to 0, anyhow it is fluctuating now.

Whether you think , on the coming PR change whether my website PR will be dropped again to 0 or just a DC problem.

[sem_scotty]

thanks for the info, all.

tedster, i did make some navigation changes, but all things that should have been viewed as white hat or SEO-friendly. working on analyzing the homepage and links to it from within the site by using google sitemaps. hopefully that wil give some insight.

[Kufu]

It could also be a simple error on Google's part, and will be corrected in time.

[LisaAndrew]

I think these are the possible causes for the PR dropping,

1. Website banned
2. Your link partners might removed yourlink
3. Due to PR difference in each google datacenter
4. Due to Jagger update also, but i am not sure. can any one comment on this last point :)

[sem_scotty]

1. Website banned
--> not the case

2. Your link partners might removed yourlink
--> same number of links as a few days ago (let alone months ago)

3. Due to PR difference in each google datacenter
--> maybe this is it, especially since my rankings in the SERPs have not been affected.

4. Due to Jagger update also, but i am not sure. can any one comment on this last point :)
--> as i said, my rankings have not been affected, so i think i can assume that this is not jagger-related. is this correct?

OVERALL, yes since my rankings have not been affected, i realize that this is not a big deal. however, it is a development, and one i should proactively address.

[LisaAndrew]

Difference in Google Data centers might be the reason. And also, your link partner's PR might have been dropped orelse their site might be banned in SE's.

[carjocky]

Don't forget the possibility of real (or even perceived) duplicate content.
I'm not casting asparagus here, but huge numbers of sites simply copy content from other sites,
and they can get severely dinged for it. -Larry

I think I have this problem. How can I take care of it? I have pages that I am sure are the same as another site. Not because I copied it to only use the info but I gave a link back to the other site and the other webpage loved the link. Also I beleive my site is indexed in google twice. Once with the WWW and once without. All of this was done before I really figured out what I was doing. Now that I did this how do I fix it? Is simply taking the pages off my site enough? But also what about the www. issue?

Thanks

[carjocky]

My site is indexed 2 times in google 68 pages with the WWW in the url and 850 without the WWW. I am sure I am getting penalized because of these 68 pages that have the WWW in them. How do I take the 68 pages with the WWW in the url and remove them from google without harming the other 850 that I dont want removed.

From what I can tell from googles removel site is that you need to put a text robot file on my server to tell it to remove. But I dont know how to write the robot.txt file so that only the WWW url's are removed and the [site.com...] (without the www) are not removed.

Can anyone help me out?

[abates]

carjocky: set up a redirect from www.site.com to site.com. Also, your question should really be a new thread.