Up in PR but down in SERPs

[adamnichols45]

Last month one of my sites was pr0 had been for a year. but most of this year we was between 1 and 3 for our most competetive keywords.

Then come april we have gone down to 13th but our pr is now at 2 for our homepage.

Can anybody explain this very strange experience.

thanks :)

[sunhapol]

I don't know what is happening but I have the same experience with my sites.

[Mobro4000]

It could have something to do with the fact that toolbar PR and SERPs have nothing to do with each other.

I'm surprised that with over 900 posts you haven't come across any discussions regarding this concept.

[webmasterworld.com...]

You can almost guarantee a PR3 or 4 the next time the update rolls around. (I say almost because G is a fickle beast). How can you do that, you ask? You just get a single link from the home page of a PR5 site. That's usually all it takes. Will it help your SERP? Probably not, unless your site is on the same topic. Then you might see a small lift. But the lift will happen weeks before the little green bar moves.

[edited by: tedster at 4:55 pm (utc) on April 5, 2009]

[brotherhood of LAN]

Just to add to Mobro's comments

[google.co.uk...]

I think this is why over the years, SEO's have said to pay less attention to the "little green bar".

[Reno]

I think this is why over the years, SEO's have said to pay less attention to the "little green bar".

Is it fair to say however that when Google first became a major player, there WAS more of a connection between PR and SERP position? But the connection is actually less now because their algo has continually evolved? Those of you who study this more closely, please correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's the word "Rank" that makes for the confusion...

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[brotherhood of LAN]

Reno, it probably is fair to say that.

The original pagerank algo provided a "score" from "votes" in the form of links. After the pagerank algo worked through the link graph several times each page was left with a "score".

You could buy a high PR link and easily boost your rankings from it, particularly for the anchor text used in the link.

But the connection is actually less now because their algo has continually evolved?

Pretty much. Understandably too. It's safe to say in the past 10 years there are many more off-page factors than "pagerank" and anchor text.

Quality is always subjective though, hence why people discuss what they think is good/bad for helping Google understand your page topic...

I wouldn't worry about PR when your traffic/rankings haven't been reduced

[adamnichols45]

it just seemed odd to me that with in a couple of days of going upto a pr2 I went down in the serps.

when its been rather steady for ages and in fact we just kept going up up and up. Now our biggest drop since we began (for this site) but pr2

I do need some more good quality links but thats another story.