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I have a few links to the web site on my site, so could it be that Google discounts the link if I have more links going out than I am receiving?
One of the possible reasons is that the site in question might have been caught selling PR. There are several directories and niche search engines that used to advertise 'a direct link to your website for $XXX a month'.
Check if this *penalty* applies to your site only or to every web site that has incoming links from the site in question.
my 2c.
One of the possible reasons is that the site in question might have been caught selling PR.
That's not the case with this site, it is a reputable site, a Foundation for the Arts. I exchanged links with them, and they suggested a strategy to integrate links in my content to their site. This is mainly to make the links more interesting to my site visitors. As a result, I have many more links to them. I thought maybe this could have something to do with it. I'll check to see if this is also happening with other sites they link to.
2. Are you sure it's not a toolbar guessed PR from a PR7 internal link? Is the page capable of having PR (is it cached in google?).
TJ
The page is cached. It's an internal links page. The home page PR is 7 and the links page is 6.
One thing I noticed is that my site name was written as SiteName rather than SiteName.com in the anchor text. The link itself is o.k., [sitename.com...] though, so I don't think this would have anything to do with it.
In a few cases, google seems to be ignoring links pages with that name, where there is very little other descriptive text.
It should also be noted that just because it does not show up in your backlinks does not mean that it is not being counted.
For example, this month my DMOZ entry (PR7) is showing up, as is one of the other ODP clones (PR4), but my entry in the google directory is not (PR7).
Other months, both google and DMOZ entries show up, and sometimes Google does and DMOZ doesn't.
My count of backlinks also fluctuates between around 600 and over 1000.
I just don't worry about it. My ranking and traffic goes up every month, and those are the only numbers that count.
In a few cases, google seems to be ignoring links pages with that name, where there is very little other descriptive text.
I guess this is the most likely explanation. The page title is "Links" and there is no content on the page other than links to other sites.
I have few links coming in, but they are mostly from quality sites. So when this link was discounted, I dropped from a 5 PR Rank to a 4 PR Rank.
"So when this link was discounted, I dropped from a 5 PR Rank to a 4 PR Rank."
That makes perfect sense. You had a link from a PR6, and that stopped being counted in the past three months like other similar pages.
We have had excellent results when we focus on more RELEVANT links rather than just a random high pr link. It is possible that Google will weigh a RELEVANT link more heavily than one that is 'off topic'
Also, it is true in our experience that google doesn't like links.html file names any longer (this has been mentioned before). If G is able to discriminate between links page file names, it makes sense that they will be able to define a links page if all you have on the page are external links and no content. Though they are not necissarily doing this now, they likely have the ability in the future. We are experimenting with adding relevant content associated with all our links on our renamed links pages. This seems to be working well. For example: A site that we link to off our renamed links page always shows us as a backlink in G. The point is, if you have a site linking to you and you are paying for PR, I believe that relevant content is part of the key. Make sure that it doesn't look like a 'links' page, and make sure that there is relevant content on the page to support the link to your site.
It just might help
We have had excellent results when we focus on more RELEVANT links rather than just a random high pr link
My thoughts exactly canadian101.
A few years ago there was big talk about search engines moving in a new direction - THEMES. I think Google has taken this step seriously and is now working out just how to produce quality search results thru LSI and Applied Semantics.
All my links.* pages on all my sites that are PR4+ show up as backlinks on at least some of the pages that they point to.
Of course all my links pages include a blurb written about each site too.
We have had excellent results when we focus on more RELEVANT links rather than just a random high pr link.
canadian101. I agree with you on this, this has always been my strategy as well and all pages linking to me are relevant. To be honest with you, I've spent little to no time exchanging links, most of the links to my site have generally been unrequested. Sites have voluntarily linked to mine in most cases without me asking them to. Others are directory listings, some of which I submitted myself, and some which just linked on their own.
The thing is though, as you can imagine, a PR4 or even PR5 is not going to catapult you into the first page in the SERPs, and so traffic levels suffer as a result. I am spending a lot of money on PPC campaigns and need to find a way to rank higher in the free SERPs.
My site is moderately optimized, I've been pretty much unnaffected by the Florida and Austin updates and didn't even notice Brandy. So I find myself in a situation where I may very well have to start a time consuming campaign to exchange links, preferably with sites with high PR (as long as they are relevant in content). I hate having to waste my time on things like this, I'd much rather focus on working on my site.
I just wish Google gave more weight to other factors other than just sites linking in when calculating PR. Maybe they do to some extent, but it seems the number of links and PR value of links is by far the greatest, if not the only determinant.
