The PR/Backlink formula

How is position calculated by Google

[Panic_Man]

I am new to SEO so please be patient. I am sure many other people find themselves in this position too so I thought I would pose the question. Over the last 12 months my main site has achieved 1st page ranking but during Google's Shenanigans over the last few months, I, like many others have been in and out of the rankings. Accept that my competitors have stayed where they are. My site has had 159 backlinks and a PR of 7 for about 6 months now which should, in theory, put me on page 1, near the top, however, it doesn't! I used to be page 1 pos 6, but that only lasted about 2 months, I made no alterations but still slipped down the rankings.

I now sometimes appear on page 2 for my 2nd most important keyword (the most important gets me nowhere at all for some reason). I don't spam, have no hidden links...my site uses the 'sales letter' format, so it's quite long but KW density etc are all fine.

Does anyone have any tips or indications about what would prevent me from getting the top spot? I'd really appreciate some help here.

[martinibuster]

...which should, in theory, put me on page 1, near the top...

No.

PR and all other theories count less. You can no longer count on ringing bells for certain criteria and being rewarded with front page exposure. The game has become more sophisticated.

[Panic_Man]

Any clues yet as to what I should be doing? It's driving me crazy!

[sit2510]

Panic_Man

Just need more clue

1) How many links do you have in alltheweb?
2) How many links do you link out by approximate?
3) 159 backlinks in Google make you PR7 - How do the important ones link to you and your link to them?
4) How many pages are there in your site?

[Panic_Man]

I have 215 links in AllTheWeb.

I have about 80 outbound links.

Most of my incoming links link using text.

I have approximately 41 pages linked off the main page and about 15 other internal pages.

Thanks for your help.

[sit2510]

Panic_Man,

Thanks for the info and that is quite similar to what I suspect as there are many PR6-7 sites in my competition watch that don't make it like yours.

Due to the recent change of G algo, what had been working well before might no longer be so for now and in the future.

For your case, it looks like G has not or does not reward you for the targeted keywords on the serp although you have high PR boost, assuming you have right anchor texts in inbound links.

With 159 backlinks in G, 215 in Alltheweb and 56 pages (41 + 15) in your sites with 80 outbound links and you got PR7, that is quite "unnatural"! On the average, most websites will get PR5 or PR6 only, but not PR7.

Compared this to Brett's forum of Webmasterworld.com which is known to be an authority site, it got 10700 backlinks in G, 136000 in Alltheweb and 100773 pages indexed by G and its PR attained is also 7. Have you seen the difference? What makes you so special?

This implies that a high percentage of your links are from high PR sites ranging between PR5-8. This is quite "unnatural" and my question is why do those sites are willing to give you their high PR links? What have you returned for that favor? Any deep negotiation? Do you understand what I try to mean?

In many occasions, PR5 sites with thousands of natural PR3 links are worth in term of ranking more than higher PR ones with few inbound links.

Just my opinion...

[Panic_Man]

I used to have a guy working solely on links for me, it was before I got involved with this so I guess he contacted loads of sites and asked for links, I pay for a few banner ads but apart from that I just try to keep up with all that Google throws at me/us! Thanks very much for the help, it really is appreciated.

[Herenvardo]

PR is not the only factor (if it's still a factor at all).
You have to care a lot of things, here I put a short list of the most known:
- Penalizations. I don't think you are punnished but it could hapen.
- On-page text. Normally, having the kw in your pages is better than not having them... but you must be carefull: if you abuse of the keywords, it can be detected.
- Anchor text. Is that taken in account? most people think that it is, but there are some who don't. How much weight have it? One of the questions that probably will never get answered.
- Vote buttons. With ToolBar v2.0, the vote for and vote against buttons appeared. When you click them, a message appears on the status bar: "Your vote on this page has been sent to Google!" Are these votes taken in account. If yes, how are they weighted? More unanswered questions.
There is one person here that holds these answers: GG
But he won't tell. He never give details like theese. He would say, and I completely agree: Optimize for visitors, not for SERPs. Remember that SEs try to give the bests results in their SERPs, so making a good site would make it go up ;)

Greetings,
Herenvardö

[Panic_Man]

Thank you for that it's most useful. I haven't seen these 'vote for' buttons, are they on the google toolbar? It's all a mystery isn't it!

Charles

[Herenvardo]

haven't seen these 'vote for' buttons, are they on the google toolbar?

Yes. But I'm not sure if they are by default. In the toolbar options dialog, page "More", section "Web buttons", there is an option to show/hide them. The "vote for" button is a yellow happy smile, and the "vote against" is a blue unhappy smiley.

Greetings,
Herenvardö