Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I had a question back on page 30 or so and got a pile of reply notifications. Unfortunately the bulk of the posts have been pointless posturing...
If anyone has any thoughts on reasons a site's homepage might drop from PR4 to PR0, I'd be very curious to hear 'em. Internal pages have kept theirs, so something has been judged amiss by Google. I don't do any link swaps on that site, nor do I use any PR padding techniques, so nothing jumps to mind.
A couple of things you could check are:
Does Google show a duplicate homepage? For example http/domain.com/indexpage.html as well as http/www.domain.com/indexpage.html. Sometimes Google has both indexed with different PRs.
Do your internal pages link back correctly to your home page?
Thanks! Good tips.
Google has 508 pages listed from the site, with only one version of the index page, "http://www.domain.com/". External links look to be pointing correctly (full domain with the slash).
I did just notice that the internal "home" links are all relative (href="/"), rather than absolute (yet another area where the developers ignored specific instructions). I'll certainly fix that before the next update, but with external links being absolute, I'm not sure that alone would do it. Anyone else see anything that might point specifically to issues with PR and relative URLs in this last update?
How can 'webmasters' be at fault? There's just too many factors involved in this PR thing - is it content, is it seo, is it links etc, er, they probably all count to a degree, but Google has control over what page holds what rank, and there really is little you can do about it. My site did have a PR4, but after a redesign and domain name change, it has to start at the bottom again.
People on here aren't giving the full story behind their PR problems, and others are guessing at what it might be, thus errors in judgement are going to happen.
Plus, the web is about Google, and Google are seen as to want to own the web. So millions ARE going to believe what Google does as Gospel, and will follow the most powerful, successful product. That's how basic this is.
People, Humans like to belong to something, be part of a group - just look at webmasterworld for the power that a following can have...... So what does Google do - it creates a method of sucking people in!
The Toolbar.
Give someone a rank, membership status or really anything - and you feed a want, flatter someone, you know, whatever you want to call it. But flattery is what this is all about, and is where the problems begin. Another problem is the inflated egos in forums, everyone thinks they're an expert at this game, and the truth is they just aren't - unless of course they all hold degrees in marketing or advertising.
After listening to various theories on here, anyone would think that over 50% of members either work or have worked for Google. It's stupid to speculate about such guarded information about the toolbar, Google itself or it's latest strategy. We don't know - nobody knows about the toolbar errors ok, and that's that. Let's not cloud or feed inaccurate information to people - it's just not helping anyone.
I'm sure Google are working on the problem and will fix whatever needs to be fixed. After all, if the toolbar is that powerful, they aren't going to want to let it slide. Too much money involved.
Know what I'm saying!
[edited by: ciml at 4:01 pm (utc) on July 21, 2005]
[edit reason] Tidying up the thread. [/edit]
Look at a member like Clint; a good example of drama queen behavior over some Google Page rank.
While I wouldn't call Clint a drama queen, it does seem to me that he posts quite a bit. Could be frustration...
If he has half as much energy for his website as he does on this forum, he'll be fine over the long haul.
He is passionate and enthusiastic however unfortunate to have suffered with the recent updates.
More people like him in the industry and less 'black hat' SEO's and we would all be smiling.
I just had to bring thus up for the "blind faith" people that think google is infallible.
Strangely, that's not something I've seen a lot of in this thread. There are a lot of things wrong with Google from the 302 hijackings, to covering up their own 302 Adsense page debacle by stating it was a "bug", to the canonical problems - for goodness sake.. there seem to be millions of sites affected by no redirection setup between www and non-www ... it doesn't take the resources of LSI to work this out!, to the carefully guarded corporate speak we sometimes get that doesn't really say anything.
Posters pointing out that PR losers may actually be seeing normal, typical, correct toolbar behaviour are not necessary Google apologists because they haven't clearly stated that they don't subscribe to the "Google is God" theory.
And there is nothing weird about and under construction page having a PR7. PR is just links. It pays no attention to content, and never has.
internal "home" links are all relative (href="/")
That shouldn't be a problem. Mine are the same, mainly because I can test my system on a PC-based Apache server without any modifications.
I had a question back on page 30 or so and got a pile of reply notifications. Unfortunately the bulk of the posts have been pointless posturing...
Oh, you noticed that too, eh? ;)
If anyone has any thoughts on reasons a site's homepage might drop from PR4 to PR0, I'd be very curious to hear 'em. Internal pages have kept theirs, so something has been judged amiss by Google. I don't do any link swaps on that site, nor do I use any PR padding techniques, so nothing jumps to mind.
Well if you listen to a couple of people on this thread, it's all YOUR FAULT since "Google is perfect and infallible". I too am trying to find out the same thing since I KNOW G is FAR FROM perfect and certainly VERY fallible.
It's been up and down more times than Jordans knickers in the last couple of days!
While I wouldn't call Clint a drama queen, it does seem to me that he posts quite a bit. Could be frustration...
You got it! ;) MUCH MUCH frustration.
If he has half as much energy for his website as he does on this forum, he'll be fine over the long haul.
Hee hee. :) I do, so I guess I'll "be fine" over the long haul". ;)
Links create PR! Yes! Well put SteveB.
Yes, but what we are saying is that we are seeing high PR on pages with NO LINKS whatsoever; no incoming, no outgoing. I can't speak for that "under construction page" someone mentioned, but if it too is a brand new website and has no IBL's or OBL's, that's certainly indicative of something not right.
"We're sorry but you do not have permission to access [alexa.com...] Your IP address, 66.249.65.102, has been blocked due to a possible violation of our Terms of Service."Did Alexa block Google?
On my end, a G search for Alexa shows it first, and its cache works (cache comes from [72.14.207.104...] ). Alexa.com here shows a PR of 7, www version shows a 0 (zero). Hmm, interesting, amazon shows a PR of 0! I guess because their home page redirects to some "odd" page.
Well if you listen to a couple of people on this thread, it's all YOUR FAULT
It might very well be my fault. Until I figure out why it happened, it's a bit early to say. If it is, I fix it. If not, I fix it. Makes no real difference in the end.
It's annoying sure, but not half as annoying as seeing the decimal slide two places to the right on earnings per click on Adsense, or having my best converting Adwords disabled because they only ever generate clicks on content match, or finding a 302 bastich as the only listing for "mydomain.com keyword"...
It might very well be my fault. Until I figure out why it happened, it's a bit early to say. If it is, I fix it. If not, I fix it. Makes no real difference in the end.
Did you recently do anything to your website linking structure wise? If you find it's not your fault, and you fix it, please let us know HOW you fix it. ;) Or for that matter, regardless of the fault let us know how you fix it.
Im Katie Price Now and dont forget! ;)
Bek.
MSN now has this site however it's gone in G.
Google really is confusing me at this moment in time.
Ryo Azuki
"Patience is a Virtue that I have no time for"
PR has rolled back, and I think some results are rolling back. Just lost a brand new site after being very impressed at initial pick-up speed.
Odd, hasn't rolled back for any of my sites. In fact, that brand new one page site I've been mentioning with not a single IBL nor OGL now shows a PR of 4 and an "INCREASE of 30% in the new update" with the future PR tool! My sites where I lost 2 PR spots still show that loss.
Any ideas? Is this permanent?
Phil, that's happening to me on Yahoo now! (1st on 1st page to #10 spot, 1st on 1st page to 45th spot! etc.).
To the senior members, should I sit tight and see what happens into next week, so should I start "fixing" (ie. messing with stuff to see if there is any result) things?
I may not be a senior member, however I've been in the business six years now.
I only found this website last year and don't use it as much as some of the other members.
Personally I'd never use post count as a stamp of quality / credibility.
