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First let me explain my linked pages structure. I got a "1st tier" Link Page which is directly linked from the home page and then 5-7 "2nd-tier" Pages branching out from this "1st tier" link page. My "1st-tier" linked page hosts about 250-350 link partners (all reciprocated) while the 2nd-tier one less than 100.
What I see is that these 5-7 "2nd-tier" pages all got PR0 - not only in 1 website but across our network, i.e. 20 websites. But 15 out of "1st-tier" link page still maintain their PR4, while another 5 drop from PR4 to PR0.
The only difference between the unaffected 15 and the affected 5 is that the latter were up online very recently, i.e. 3 in mid Feb, 1 in March, the last one is up for 4 years but the link pages were created only in this February.
The bad news is that all the other pages including the index page of these 4 affected ones which used to get PR5 in April are now dropped to PR0. But the good news is that their positionings in SERP are not affected at all, i.e. they still rank ranging from #1-4 and YES WITH PR0.
The last one that was online for 4 years got its index page PR6 and yet remains the same. Its 1st-tier linked page, being directly linked from homepage of PR6, created recently in February 03 and used to have PR4 in March & April, is now dropped to PR0.
I find out that the name is "not" the matter at all. I do use the word "Links" very prominently on some sites and they are not affected to PR0. On the contrary, those sites that suffered PR Loss - I use "resources" or "related site". So no matter how you name your link page, the intention is still the same, i.e. the hub for your link partners.
I also find out that the amount of PR transfer from other pages to your link page could be "Crucial" for you to reserve your PR. About half of the unaffected 15 sites got all the internal links from every pages on its own website and the other half got only 1 link from its homepage. The reason that I believe to have help these link pages that got only 1 link from its homepage not suffering from PR loss is due to the fact that enough PR transfer has been passed from the homepage and they are created before February 2003 (for my case).
To Summarize
) I believe GG is right about the fact that Google does not intentionally penalize any link pages or sites that reciprocate links.
2) The real reason could be that those link pages do not have enough PR to leverage itself above PR0.
3) File name such as Links.htm "DOES NOT" impose negative threat to being penalized at least in this Dominic.
4) It appears that my sites or link pages that suffer PR loss to white bar are created in and after mid February 2003. This is definitely coincided with various treads and posts that data and links are from that period and newer ones in March and April have not been accounted for.
5) The drop of PR0 of your websites (In my case the new ones in Feb & Mar) does not bear any negative impact on your ranking in SERP (at the time of this writing).
That's all about my jigsaw. Any one who can contribute their experience in details especially the timeframe of when your link pages are online would greatly be appreciated.
After posting the thread yesterday, I become more suspecious that the problem of PR0 lies not because of the link pages but it is the "AGING".
To check my suspicion, I check further beyond the link pages, but to the normal and "content" pages in old sites as well. Interestingly, I find that those new pages uploaded after January 2003 (around 8 Feb) are all white bar - PR0 too!
These new pages are not for the links but for the products and contents and they are linked from the pages of PR5 and PR6. Those before February are not affected.
As many of us here might be too concerned about PR0 on the link pages, I suggest that you also check your other normal pages as well that were up after January 03 - If the above assumption of "AGING" is true - I guess they will be PR0 as well.
I am in the same situation. I have had over 20+ nonlink sites (new in the last two months) go to PR0. But like you, they still kept there high positions and several #1s with a PR0. Makes me really worried about the next update though (if all these PR0 sites and pages will drop off the radar)...
It also seems to me that the toolbar is no longer "guessing" the PR for any new pages on an already indexed URL. This remains greyed out until googlebot does the full crawl.
One of them has gotten over 2000 referers from google in the last 30 days. It is a page that until recently was many layers down in my site. I now feature it on the home page due to popularity. It has become very popular since this whole dance started with the new algo.
My internal page PR seems to fluctuate much more as well, almost like it was just a guess before, and now is calculated.
This is a PR5 site.
-Pete
[psychology.uchicago.edu...]
[au.dir.yahoo.com...]
[gossamer-threads.com...]
All of the other pages around these sites are non-spammy, high PR pages.
I can not agree you more.
all I see is old data from past.
1. pr back to old pr (before drop one cross the board)
2. banned sites come up again
3. new backlinks no shown.
all these say that
the update is old data.
older than last months
So I think there is nothing to worry now indeed as to "why my PR drop to 0", especially for those websites, internal webpages and linked pages that were up after Jan 03, as it seems to have been uniformly affected across the webs - even those newer pages in highly authority sites, news sites, Yahoo, and even the posts in Webmasterworld that were produced in Feb - Apr 03 do show white bar.
It would be abnormal if we got higher PR in respect to the above leaders. Thus the cause appears to be AGING and not because of reciprocal links and link exchange.
SideNote: I did found some pages that seem to be created after Jan 03 with Green bar - but quite rare, so perhaps there are some exceptions out there.
The last two biggies that I have noticed are
SitePoint (www.sitepoint.com)
News.Com.Com.Com (www.news.com.com)
Even though they are PR0'd, they are still visible in Google.
Strange, no?
A few days back I was very surprise like you but now no longer because it is very prevalent across the web, so we are not alone...As GG suggested they'd completed phase 1, so proceeding with next phase. Now we only have to wait and see. Patience counts this time.
