Page Rank but not Indexed in Google

[webslinger]

I've taken quite a hit during this change from Google. Several of my sites do not appear using the site command and there is no traffic coming from Google. Mind you I have followed the webmasters guidelines as best to my knowledge. No violations have been reported in Google sitemaps either.

Now the odd thing is they still have or now have pagerank. In fact two went from a 0 to a 4. (pagerank only shows on the index page)

Now while most of you are reporting losing pagerank but staying in the index I'm seeing the opposite. Gaining pagerank but no longer being ranked or getting Google traffic.

Has anyone else experienced this? Has anyone recovered from this in the SERPS during this update? Any insights?

[trinorthlighting]

Your site has been banned. You need to go over every page to see why. Start reviewing your site, submit a reinclusion request, etc.

I have been watching 5 sites with hidden text, all banned in google but gained page rank this last time around. One is a PR7 site.

This proves PR has no effects of being in googles index or not.

[jimbeetle]

Banned sites used to show a gray bar (trust me, I've been through it more than once). So, unless that's changed I still assume that a page showing any TBPR at all is not banned, but possibly being hit with one of the mysterious "penalties" of some sort.

Plus, with a lot of the ups and downs we've been seeing the past few days and that are, ahem, "normal" during any infrastructure update, it might be best to wait a few days for things to settle down. Then, check and analyze the situation.

But, you might want to take trinorthlighting's advice and start going over your site, just in case.

And by the way, welcome to Webmaster World.

[BigDave]

Or it just might be a temporary glitch on Google's part.

Be concerned, but don't panic and do anything drastic ... yet.

[netmeg]

I have one site where the same thing happened - I'm positive it isn't banned, and it's coming back one page a day, for some reason. All the pages are at least PR3 and one PR4. It just disappeared a couple of days ago, and it's slowly working its way back. No idea why. I'm not making any changes unless and until I'm sure it's not some Google glitch.

[webslinger]

Thanks for your feedback. Right now I'm in the waiting mode like Jim suggested. I decided to check with other webmasters to see if anyone else was reporting the same thing.

[bznayot]

I've had clients who experienced several sites getting banned and all of them retained some toolbar PR (on at least some pages).

You can have either a site or pages get banned (removed from index), but I think that when pages are banned it then affects the site in general - you'll still have a green toolbar, but it means nothing if your page(s) are not showing up in a search for unique on-page text/title.

One site had several leading pages go from PR 5-7 to whitebar, but the rest of the site's pages kept their toolbar PR. Other smaller sites kept a toolbar PR of 2-4, with no pages going whitebar.

BUT all sites in question were removed from the SERPs.

The pages that retained toolbar PR kept getting cached, while the pages that went whitebar were removed from the index - i.e., no cache, and first URL only on a site:www.example.com/banned-page.html or a search for [www.example.com/banned-page.html] in Google.

I believe that Google would like us to mistake a page/site with cache/greenbar for "healthy" if it flags it for certain types of spam.

[dailypress]

I have the same problem. My home page is PR 4/10 and all other pages are 0. Whats interesting is that when I did a G.Search on the Page title it never showed up until I submitted a Sitemap. Now when I perform a Google search my website shows up, however the pages remain PR0/10.
any suggestions? Do you think I have been penalized?
The home page consists of many links to pages with videos (some from YouTube). All pages (except for the homepage) are ranked 0/10. The G.toolbar is not gray btw. The google ads are on all pages (PR 0) except for the homepage (PR 4) which has no advertising banners or ads.

I should mention that my very first website had a PR of 5/10 (homepage) and all other pages were 0/10. After 6-7 months I believe the home page went down to 3/10 and all my other pages had a PR ranging from 3-5. Anyone had a silimar experience? Any thoughts?

[jimbeetle]

dailypress, the way you describe it makes it sound like there is no other content on those pages besides the videos and ads. If so, that would explain most of the problems.

You might want to be sure that each of these pages has a unique title element, unique meta description, a solid H1, and a paragraph or two of copy.

[trinorthlighting]

You really have to look at the content vs the html. If the html outweighs the text content it will do nothing but hurt you.

[dailypress]

jimbeetle - I did include a seperate page and title and a one line brief topic regarding the video. I then embedded youtube.com video clips. I think you are right. I need to add some text on each page.

[dailypress]

jimbeetle - I did include a seperate page and title and a one line brief topic regarding the video. I then embedded youtube.com video clips. I think you are right. I need to add some text on each page.

[webslinger]

It would seem like a strange tactic for Google to leave pagerank on a site that has been banned. Pagerank is not only viewed by webmasters but a lot of web users and professionals judge their surfing experience on pagerank. (Ex. Where they buy from, trusted sources, etc.)

Are they really that paranoid of webmasters that they would leave pagerank in an attempt to fool a site owner. Numbers don't lie and that ultimately will be what tips us off. If they actually do think leaving pagerank on a banned site will appease a webmaster who sees no traffic they must think we're braindead.

This should be unsettling for most since I'm seeing this happen to quite a few well designed/written content sites without violating GWG.

[dailypress]

webslinger - my website is not banned

[fishfinger]

This has happened for two of my sites. Both still show PR but pages do not show up using the site: command - although you can find them using allinurl:

I believe it's not a ban but a bug. One site's homepage is still ranking well for its terms - 10 days after all pages were dunmped.

[trinorthlighting]

The sites we monitor that have been banned still have PR and have actually increased PR in the last update. This shows that the little green toolbar means nothing! I have many examples!

[edited by: tedster at 6:32 pm (utc) on Jan. 30, 2007]

[gemini]

As far as PageRank on the Google Toolbar - it doesn't seam to make much sense to me anymore. I have a third level domain that I created for affiliate purposes only - I blocked all spiders right away and never let it to be indexed. The home page of the subdomain gained PR3 within the first PR update a couple of years ago and now it is PR4. No pages can be found in Google and never could.

Also I noticed that some pages of the private forum I'm in have PR as well and they are not index either due to authentication requirements before you can assess the content.

Last week my friend logged in into Arizona Multiple Listing Service - which is limited to the service members and requires authentication as well - he could see PareRank on some of the internal pages. Again, pages are not indexed and there is no way a spider can get into the system.

Just weird.

[fishfinger]

Update : it's NOT a ban, it's a bug

I had a total of 3 sites that had pages dumped by Google (from a few to all except Supplemental) for over 3 weeks.

All are now recovered as of yesterday/today; two are ranking and I expect the third to follow suit.

I hadn't done anything dodgy to them or to their links.

Just another glitch.

[webslinger]

Fishfinger,

I hope you are right and I get back in. I had six of my sites drop completely off the Google index all on the same day. These are sites I had writers make unique content for. It's just now been 3 weeks for me and I still have yet to see any traffic from Google return.

[fishfinger]

It's always easy to say "sit tight and wait" when it's not YOUR site that's affected ;)

My 3 sites were hit just before Christmas. As with the other bug I noticed (homepage being dropped from the 'regional only' results in regional Googles) there was no common thread. Different hosting, different coding, different markets, different content.

Two days ago they popped back into the index.

[BScan]

I had same experience. Also can tell it's a glitch.
Some of the pages wasn't in index 2-3 weeks, and after that they are back. That problem I saw first time before 2 months.
I can't tell how many pages are affected (because it's a large site), but I know that Google sending traffic again for main pages.
Probably there are some of pages which still have that problem, but they are not so important to track.

[Rufus_dog]

I just notice that pages in supplemental results still have PageRank, but they are not in the main index and won't show up in search results.

I also notice that if Google has problem crawling your site or some pages, they will remove the pagerank of these pages. One of my sites had network problem (web host fault) on Jan 17 and Google could not get access to my homepage. Now the homepage has a PR0 but other inner pages still have PR4. Fortunately, the homepage is still in the main index and ranking has not been changed.

Other people have always said that PR is not associated with ranking and I think it is more so now than ever.

[fishfinger]

Nope. I have 2s, 3s and 4s that are caning 5s and 6s for worthy terms. I'd say that volume of anchor text links still counts and that low PR relevant links will beat high PR but irrelevant links every time.