PageRank Dropped

[joseph_lee]

My site had a pagerank of 5 last year, it then dropped from 5 to 4 at end of last year, then dropped from to current 2 at beginning of this year. During this period, we even have more quality back links (some articles published in the site related to our business and links from companies who provide similar services with us). Although our pagerank dropped, our site is still in top 3 position of Google search results for the keywords. Can anyone know why our pagerank dropped and kept as low as 2? are there any ways to improve it?

[sem4u]

Have you sold any direct links on your site?

[piatkow]

Has this affected your position in the SERPS?

[joseph_lee]

we never sell any direct links on our site, and this has not affected our position in the SERPS.

[tangor]

Freely state I'm talking out of my hat so ignore me, but I see Google's Page Rank in the same category as Carbon Tax And Trade: Making Something Out of Nothing and making folks desire it. Your TRUE "rank" is HOW MANY FOLKS VISIT YOUR SITE and DO YOU CONVERT (if a commercial site)---your server log files will give you that information. That said, changes in Google's PR do seem to have no rhyme or reason, considering all the inquiries here at WW, but the angst level is high when PR drops... which comes back to the have you lost traffic/conversions which exceeds the norm for seasonal/financial times? Just an observation.

[joseph_lee]

Personally, I think higher Pagerank can give better image of a company. Typically, a large a company is, a higher pagerank their website may have. I have Google toolbar installed with PageRank bar enabled, when I search products/services from a company, I tend to select a company with higher pagerank because it gives me image that company might be more reliable. Probably I am wrong, I believe there are many people with same thought as me. Therefore, although I know pagerank makes something out of nothing, I do hope my site has a higher pagerank.

[moftary]

Joseph, forget about those who tell you PR doesn't matter.
Those are the same people who buy links based on PR, submit to directories based on their PR, etc..

On the other hand, there is no connection between your site PR and your SERPs. And yes you are right; a lot of people with Google toolbar installed consider a company with a higher PR website is more reliable and an information site with higher PR is more trustworthy.

In the end of the day, not every internet surfer is a SEO who do know the PR algorithm. They just count on what Google says about its PR being some sort of a factor for evaluating sites.

[joseph_lee]

yes, right, then have any ideas on why our pagerank dropped and kept as low as 2? are there any ways to improve it?