Pages rank high, but show no pagerank

[Insiderman]

I recently renamed main pages for my website from category numbers to topic-relevant names. These pages pull up #2 for the appropriate keywords, but do not have a pagerank showing on Google toolbar.

Also, different Google sites rank the website differently. The main google.com site lists us #14 for keywords <edited>. The "English" website lists us #12. Must be all those Chinese searches for <those keywords>.

Finally, any idea whether moving the index page from the root to a subdirectory actually improves pagerank?

Reference website is <edited>.

<Sorry, no specifics.
See Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]>

[edited by: tedster at 8:05 pm (utc) on July 16, 2006]

[tedster]

1) You're seeing proof that PageRank is just one of over 100 factors that Google uses to rank their search results. Also, remember that even immeidatey after an update on the toolbar PR, they are showing a historical value of PR and not the "real time" number that is used behind the scenes.

2) Yes, Google does rank sites differently on different country TLDs, and also according to the country or geographic region where the search originates even on google.com. They sometimes even give different results to different browser, sitting on the same web connection.

3) PageRank is not defined by domain name, or by position in the site's directory structure. It depends on inbound links from other pages on the web -- that's all that's involved. Many links from other sites will automatically go to the domain rootno matter where you actualy resolve the page -- so not resolving that domain root directly can create problems and actually hurt your site. I've seen this problem several times, and I woud not suggest moving the domain.