Google PageRank Changes - April 1, 2009

[bobbonew]

My site is showing PR 0 (previous sandbox PR) and flickering PR 3? Anybody know if the PR has been indeed updated? This does not seem to act like ghost PR.

[maximillianos]

My site has not changed PR in years. It is very strange... We continue to grow traffic & content wise and get links, but our PR never changes... For years it has always been the same.

So we don't put much value on it anymore...

[swa66]

I've relatively new site flickering from PR0 to PR4. Good, about where I was hoping for.

I see no change on older sites this time (had a PR5 recuperate to PR6 (on just the homepage) last time round.)

[ogletree]

I have one that was a 4 that went to a 2 in the last update that is now up to a 3. I have a few others that went from 3 to 4.

[Hyder_Ali]

Hello Everyone,

So, atlast today our page rank got updated and like the same old story some got better pagerank and some got their page rank reduced and some have not even get ranked. Well, we have seen from past that google update page rank every 3 months or so and we all who believe in page rank and found page rank favourable get started to write on forums or blogs or on any other things to share page rank discussion.

My point here is when we got some page rank from google suppose 2 for new website or 1 also after 3 months we are getting our page rank increase so we are happy but if we get reduced then we dont believe how it is possible. Why didn't google keep the page rank as it is the same old if he doesn't want to increase the page rank and why he reduced the page rank. By what logic he is reducing the pagerank. Everyone is trying hard to get their website optimization get as many as backlinks and paste fresh new content everyday or week. So why google doesn't see our hard work. Why he reduced the page rank for not obvious reason.

Should we protest against google for reducing page rank? Or should we stop working on our website?

Can we do something?

[edited by: tedster at 2:08 pm (utc) on April 2, 2009]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[travelin cat]

Yep can confirm update as well. Down one notch on home page. Remember everyone, this reflects data from months ago, so if your traffic is up (like on my main site) that's all that matters.

[doughayman]

My page rank is fairly stable across the board, but I have one site who PR went -1, but whose ranking soared. PR is not the be-all, end-all.

[tedster]

Should we protest against google for reducing page rank? Or should we stop working on our website?

The PR value for any page, including the home page, is not only about you. PageRank is a measure of how your site "fits" with the entire web.

Many times a change in PR happens because some of the pages that link to you may have seen their PR go up or down so their link has a different value. Also PR is only about links, not about content.

There's some good reading about PageRank in the Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.

[Musicarl]

Our homepage went from 4 to 3 - it was 6 less than a year ago and then (I think) a debacle with our mobile site killed it. Traffic has increased and it's a good authority site - referenced over 500 times in the mighty Wiki.

[Seb7]

weyhay, its happening.

Some of mine actually went up in PR today for the first in years! better still, none went down.

[ponyboy96]

Seeing an update in PR for some of our sites. So far it has been positive. I wonder when we are going to see a big update in the algorithm.

[thinker]

Out of sandbox, 0 to 4

[wheel]

Yay! Some inner pages on my main site went from greybar to PR4's and 5's type of thing. Not that I cared specifically, other than the greybar thing is a bit disconcerting and makes me wonder if Google is suspicious about the pages without reason.

And I've got a bunch of test sites that just went from pr 0 to 4. So that's good news. Again not because of the PR, but because I think it's an indication Google's not suspicious of the pages.

[moftary]

wheel, ditto!

[chewy]

Glad to see this doesn't seem like an April Fools Day joke so far as I am seeing this too.

Hope to see some more of the WebmasterWorld mods (the heavyweights!) weigh in on this soon.

[mayest]

I'm down from PR 4 to 3 across the board, except the blog which is still at 4 (for now). Bummer. I hope that it is a high 3.

Edit: Just want to note that my traffic is about 65% higher than last year at this time.

[tedster]

Hope to see some more of the WebmasterWorld mods (the heavyweights!) weigh in on this soon

I think you'll find that many long time webmasters do not watch PageRank very closely - maybe a home page here and there. I rarely do, unless I'm investigating a significant shift in traffic.

[Fiver]

I think you'll find that many long time webmasters do not watch PageRank very closely

Save those who have moved into selling links. TBPR is a comm'oddity' thanks to G.

[greenleaves]

ditto, the PRs they are a changin'

[Alcoholico]

Does the PR of a website have any influence on:

rankings?
crawling rate?
deep crawl rate?

In my experience:
rankings? -> None whatsoever
crawling rate? -> Perhaps, depends on contents change frequency, and links quality and quantity.
deep crawl rate? -> None, depends on site structure, links and contents

[tedster]

Does the PR of a website have any influence on...

A "website" does not have PR, only an individual url has PR. The PageRank of a url is the strongest algo factor that is query-independent. It works as a sort of amplifier for the query-dependent parts of the algo. So in that area I see things quite differently from Alcoholico.

[Fiver]

The PageRank of a url is the strongest algo factor that is query-independent. It works as a sort of amplifier for the query-dependent parts of the algo.

Agreed - and so it has high correlation to rankings, but low direct causation.

I have never dismissed it out of hand, but never let it make decisions for me.

[apauto]

Main site went from PR 3 to 2, new site went from 1 to 2.

[RibaRiva]

I'm thinking that my home page went down a point because I had banner ads to direct advertisers that were not "nofollowed". Does that make sense?

[workingNOMAD]

I am surprised people even care about PR these days. In fact I am surprised myself that I am reading this thread!

[tedster]

I'm thinking that my home page went down a point because I had banner ads to direct advertisers that were not "nofollowed". Does that make sense?

Nofollow on ads is what Google asks you to do. If anything, nofollow on links to other websites would help your PR (just a little bit) because more PR is circulated through your internal linking.

Look at who links TO you for the reason behind PR changes - that's the critical factor.

[edited by: tedster at 12:32 am (utc) on April 4, 2009]

[steveb]

"I am surprised people even care about PR these days. In fact I am surprised myself that I am reading this thread!"

I'm surprised there are still people who don't understand that pagerank is the foundation of the basic Google algorithm.

[wolfadeus]

Minus one from 6 to 5. Boo, Google!

[Juvie]

Homepage went from 4 to 3. Some internal category pages went from 1 or 2 to 3. Traffic continues to increase about 8% per month.

[apauto]

Do links from your own subdomains affect PR differently than subfolders?

[tedster]

I never considered that question, apauto. Do you see some evidence that there is a difference?