PR Update - January 2008

[MLHmptn]

Seems Google started this PR update a little early? Seeing tons of sites with PR jumps or is it a temporary glitch like some have reported this last week? Seeing this PR update on 72.14.253.99, .103 & .147. Not that PR matters anymore but just thought some might want to know your green bar is moving!

[cabowabo]

Just ran a check on about 300 or so directories, and only a few dozen had their PageRank changed from the last update in November. For one of my main sites, the number of links Google reports with the "link" command tripled.

From looking at the sites I control and all the directories, it looks like a minor toolbar update, with a solid backlink update, which helps in the competitive analysis for SEOs.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:11 pm (utc) on Jan. 15, 2008]
[edit reason] removed off-topic remarks [/edit]

[BillyS]

>>the number of links Google reports with the "link" command tripled.

I'm seeing a 50% increase in links reported.

[FrankWeb]

Seems PR is really not so interesting anymore to most of us. I remember the old days (few years ago) here at webmasterworld when a new PR update resulted in many people discussing the impact it had on their site and the possible next update of Google. The thread often had to be split due to size.

Kind of miss that excitement, it was fun.

[Bewenched]

Bewenched, I've never seen Google use PR updates like that. Now ranking and algo updates, that's another discussion.
Back before Google launched the link seller PR demotions, Matt Cutts blogged that around Google a PR update was pretty much a non-event" Besides, a PR update doesn't really create any "top" to work with.

Brett,
if thats the case then why do we see tons of spam and mfa sites rise to the top for short periods of time .. then see them eliminated from the results.

[Pico_Train]

This is a link selling thing, I think... Who of you are selling links?

[gosman]

Never bought or sold links.

[Pushkar]

This update affect us, our site PR goes 5 to 4, ranking in top 20 to out off 600.
Please suggest me how much time it will take to recover and most important I will like the reason behind of this disaster.

Pushkar

[Marcia]

As best as I can recall for a loooong, long time, PR drops were related to some kind of linking practices or conditions. Now it's time to either clean up links, or get some if there haven't been any for a long, long time and/or long-standing ones have lost their value.

[sem4u]

I am so past caring about PR. One of my sites fell from a 2 to 0 in the last update....but it still managed to receive 44,000 uniques in December from organic searches alone.

[gosman]

I have one site dropped from PR3 to PR1, but has actually gained some traffic.

[Pico_Train]

The more I look at it, the more it just doesn't make sense. If the homepage has PR = x then usually, barring any HUGE links to an interior page, then the interior page usually has PR = x-1.

What I see for various interior pages is x, x-1, x+1 and just plain greyed out. All over the show, without anything being blatantly obvious.

Some of my pages have link partners, others don't. 1 page with a link partner, grey, other page with same link partner, different link on topic, PR is normal. Pages without link partners are grey out or as above x, x+1 and x-1 for PR.

[randle]

The more I look at it, the more it just doesn't make sense.

It’s well past time to accept that’s exactly what Google wants to happen. What you see is purposely being distorted.

The back link checker on the tool bar, used to be a pretty handy tool too, and they made that useless. What’s so different about this?

There are three kinds of information in this world;

Good
Bad
None

The absolutely worst kind of information to base assumptions and decisions on is bad information.

Stop looking at tool bar PR, and the quality of information you have, has just gone way up.

[drall]

Well said Randle. I just wish more people would listen to this advice and stop wasting time looking at the tbpr tbbl.

It is completely 100% false data that is purposly being manipulated by Google for the sake of misdirection.

"They offer bait that which the enemy must take, manipulating the enemy to move while they wait in ambush."

SUN-TZU

[SEOPTI]

So webmasters are Googles enemies?

[drall]

The ones buying and selling links to manipulate rankings sure are and Google has publicly stated that.

[Steelbank]

my PR went from 4 to 3 during this update.

I have also noticed that a search for link:www.mysite.com results in 0 links found. However a search for link:mysite.com shows the number of sites linking to my site.

Any insight on this?

[Miamacs]

aaaaargh I don't get it.
*grin*

not that I care but I don't like unsolvable riddles.

...

completely whitehat site. same level pages.
added at the same time. same structure. same everything.
4 - 0 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 0 - 0 - 4 - 0 - 4...

site on the same server, similar SEO is OK
site on the same theme, same server, is OK

anchor text is OK, pages rank.
inbounds seem to have nothing to do with either 4's or 0's
outbounds... well... the same pattern of no pattern.

traffic is of course unaffected

...

You know I'm starting to think that there is an intentional *bug* added to confuse the landscape, and no, not penalties or filters, just some random number generator.

...The PageRank lottery *haha*

[SEOPTI]

It sounds like SELECT * FROM PageRankPool ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 2

;)

[Marcia]

hehe...

<tinfoil hat>
Has anyone had any page(s) for no reason seem to go PR0 (maybe even the only PR0 page on the site) that had any mention of "SEO" or "optimization" or "PR" or "Page Rank" on the page?
</tinfoil hat>

completely whitehat site. same level pages.
added at the same time. same structure. same everything.
4 - 0 - 4 - 4 - 4 - 0 - 0 - 4 - 0 - 4...

I'm seeing the same exact thing, particularly on the level of /main-page/ for subdirectories. It may seem random, but I've got printouts of the SERPs (which I do periodically) to check a few things out, including, but not limited to, crawl dates on many pages and the number of internal links to pages - and where on the site/pages those internal links might be.

[drall]

Well now we know what Google has invented with billions of dollars!

Publication Number: PRA/WGU/342576565

Title: THE GOOGLE PAGERANK RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR

Abstract: A method for completely confusing...