Google TBPR - Grey / Gray - what does it really mean?

[Whitey]

minnapple #:3716262 Without going into detail, I will state un-indexed pages, [gray bar pages] are useless for adding any significant link pop. [webmasterworld.com...]

But i think the "visible" gray bar pages can be indexed - can't they ?

And I'm seeing pages that have been gray for months, some for weeks [ since the last update ], some returned from green to gray and some presumably awaiting the finalisation of the TBPR data export.

I read a comment a while ago, somewhere, saying that they thought the difference between white and greybar went out the door years ago. Somehow I don't believe the explanation of "Current page is not ranked by Google" is the whole story.

But really, I'm not sure and I can't find any info that reflects the situation with certainty. Can someone provide the definitive answer on what the significance of the grey bar is, and what the various stages and status' are of the various colors [ gray and white ].

[tedster]

A white bar means PR is between zero and one. A gray bar means no data is on Google's public PR server for that URL. There could be many reasons for "no data" - including an intentional removal on Google's part, or data that was accidentally not exported.

The observation that minapple made was "useless for adding any significant link pop". As a general rule of thumb, that's pretty accurate in my experience, the operative word being "significant". There are quality directories with gray bar urls that still do add link pop.

[Quadrille]

The 'visible page rank' is always three months plus out of date, and it's a 'snapshot' of the past, not necessarily a serial review.

So *POSSIBLE* reasons include:

- new-ish url
- Google unfriendly url
- page removed from index by Google
- page blocked by your instruction (eg noindex)
- page blocked by server or server error

(and I'm sure others can add to that list)

A two month old page can easily be in the index, but be greyed. Many 'deep' cms pages (eg second page in a forum thread), can be indexed but forever grayed by an unfriendly URL. An old page on a site with an unreliable or overloaded / limited server may be indexed now, but still grayed.

And I'm sure there's plenty of other 'greyed' pages that are indexed.

But while they ARE grayed, their 'link value' must be highly suspect at least!

In every case, it's important to look at the context; you know your site, and your seo and webmaster methods, so you can usually interpret a gray bar on your own pages.

If it comes as a surprise, then it's probably worth finding out if it's indexed or not :(

A gray bar on someone else's site may be telling you a lot ... or nothing at all.

[soxos]

My 2c on the grey bar:-
Either:-
1)The page is mostly page up of shell
2)Title using same keywords as a stonger page, in particular the homepage
3)If in doubt, remove the metas from the weaker page

I dont think is necesserily means a penalty. Just that the page doesn't provide useful (different) (enough) content.

[nicknick]

Ive found that grey tool are indexed as I have added links to grey tool bar sites and have from GWT have been indexed as external links.

The PR of that link in unknown as my site is still greyed out.

[Whitey]

old, stale pages, some of which were grey-barred. [webmasterworld.com...]

So what is "stale" , what is "freshness" and can this really cause a page to go grey ?