Is PR so important lately?

[karkadan]

My question is: Is PR totally important lately?
At the middle of November, my traffic dropped (20%), and in February, it dropped another 33% from Google Images.

Sites hotlinking my images had priority. But there were reports about the search engine. So I was patient.

Checking my website, I noticed that articles written 3 months ago, are not indexed.

Articles written 5 months ago, don't have cache version on Google for no reason.

Articles written years ago, when I check the text (to see if Google puts me as the original author)... shows another website (with PR0) as "source"... and my site is not shown at all.

The main change I noticed is that my site had PR5, and internal pages had PR4 and 3.... now I have PR3, and internal pages have 1 and 0... the ones that have zero, dissapeared from Google.

Any thoughts?

[skweb]

Karkadan, the PR is somewhat important in the ranking algo but not enough to cause the damage that you are reporting. I am especially concerned that 3 months old articles are not being indexed. It seems that you are facing some another penalty that you might want to find out.

[Quadrille]

Karkadan, have you looked at Google Analytics? It's always worth checking for the simple errors we all make (well, I do, anyway!), that can lead to major disasters.

It will also show if you've had unrecognised server issues.

[karkadan]

Regarding 3 month old articles not being indexed. I think that, when I had PR5, I can put the list of all my articles at a 3rd page (which had PR 3 or 2). By 3rd page, I mean, there is only one link from page 2, and all pages link to page 2.

But since I lost PR, I think that I'm being less indexed. Or is it maybe because I have tons of webpages.

1. I have noticed that Google Webmasters allow you to change how fast your site can be indexed. I switched to FAST.

2. I have noticed that links posted on main page (PR3) are being indexed. I'm going to start indexing all my articles from main page.

3. Articles (from 2nd site, which has not lost visitors)... articles that I mentioned having issues with google cache, are articles I changed the name structure... I put so many -s and the url is too long... so it-may-look-spammy or the filename is very long.

Still, I find it odd that in some old pages, with good file names, and good visit trend.. when copy pasting the text and searching it on Google, my page does not appear...

Or in my main site, where pages had PR0, and used to bring traffic from Google Images.... even when I search for "keyword", other pages stealing or hotlinking my images appear...

[karkadan]

Regarding unrecognized server issues.. I have only noticed that G Webmaster Tools, generates me a list of over 100 pages with "broken links".... but they put a link structure that are not in my pages.... so I find it odd...

[Quadrille]

Try xenu.

How long have you been with your current host?

Is it one you know well?

[karkadan]

I've been like 3 years.

I also noticed lately, that images from my site, when searching for them (name + name of my site) appears on Google Images, but linked to a blogger who linked the image in his site.

Also, that most of my internal pages, that now has PR0 are mostly non existant.

Third, since I have tons and tons of pages, Google cannot index me or don't pay much attention to my pages like in the past.

I have noticed 2 posts around about 2 big sites being dropped. Is this sudden? From one time to another, very large sites has become... the devil?

I ask because today, my ranking dropped in a keyword I had for 4 years. So I lost another 10% of my visits. When searching for text from the internal pages (3rd jump from the main page) on Google, the middle pages (2nd jump) appear, but not the internal ones. Even with old pages.

I'm considering dropping the tons of pages I have (individual images) and have much lesses pages... will it fix something?

[tedster]

Don't make any changes unless you've thought them through and can see a clear possibility that there would be a specific path to an improvement. I'd say focus first on what is best for your visitors, and second on sending the clearest signals about that to Google that you can.

So avoid jumping into any change just because it "might" help with Google in some imprecise way - be detailed and exact in your analysis and planning. There are a lot of good thread to studys in the Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page. It's a good resource, and it includes lots of input from some very experienced members.

[Rufus_dog]

I think PageRank does matter. My observation is the higher the pagerank of your web site, the more pages you will get indexed by Google. If your site drops from PR5 to PR3, some pages may be moved to supplemental results. They have the grey bar and you won't find them in Google search. The result is a drop of traffic. I have sites with PR2 and PR3 and even if I write unique new content, they are not picked up by Google. If I link to these new pages from my homepage, some of them get indexed and some don't. However, if you have other sites linking to the new content, they will get indexed more quickly.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Some of us might say that PR does not matters at all, however all of us does say that a site is an authority when we see PR 8/9/10 in the TBPR. And would also want to have a link or two from these sites.

[anallawalla]

It matters when you see a greybar for most of your sites, as I am for mine today. :( These are old sites - PR4/5, so I'm going to ignore it as a glitch.

I only check for greybar versus showing white or green pixels. The quantity of green is not important to me.

[karkadan]

My beliefs are:

- PR is not so important for Google ranking. A page optimized with PR0 can outweight a page with PR3/4 in Google search results.

- However, PR is important for indexing. The higher your PR, the more pages Google will consider.

I had tons and tons of pages listed from page 2 or 3, and they were indexed with no problem (when I had PR5).

Now that I have PR3, and most internal pages connected from homepage, have PR1. The rest of pages have PR0.

What I did was to create an article_sitemap page, and I linked it from main page (and other pages). Hope that my articles get to be noticed again, a bit.