Overcoming PageRank Zero

Results of Test #1 are in.

[Beachboy]

I mentioned a couple times that I was in the process of running a some tests on how to effectively "overcome" a PR0 problem for internal pages once Google has removed a penalty.

If indeed the update is over (I just tested a phrase on www, www2 and www3, same number of returns on each), then I have something to report on the first test.

The site in question was PR0 back around December, came out of it with PR2 60 days ago, it improved to PR3 a month ago. The internal pages are all PR0.

I have added some new sub-pages to the site in the last month. One received an initial PR "guesstimate" of 2. The update is over, and so the actual PR of this page is now 2. One new page has PR0, but probably because PR has not been calculated yet, that will come next month. Two other new pages are still toolbar grayed out (too late for this latest update.)

Interestingly, the only two links to the new PR2 page are from pages which are still suffering the PR0 penalty.

On the assumption that the update really is over, however, then this new PR2 page should have better positioning than it does if it's really PR2. Its positioning in the SERPs acts as though it's PR0 -- way out of sight in terms of positioning. Is the toolbar messing up? Clearly it does need more inbound links; I assume the links from those other two PR0 pages are useless.

What does this mean? It appears to mean that changing page filenames will restore PR to the internal pages, since apparently Google catalogs which pages are zero'd out. It appears also to mean that PR from the index page will transmit through PR0 pages to impact on pages that the PR0 pages link to.

Comments, anyone?

More to come with the July update.

[magnus]

I don't think pagerank has updated on the toolbar quite yet. Wait another few days and then see if your new subpages are still pagerank 2. I'm thinking you are still getting the "guesstimate" effect.

[tigger]

Beachboy

sorry I can't help you, as I'm on a google learning cure myself, but the update does seem to have settled as I'm also seeing same results on 2/3 & google

I've a new site that yesterday had a zero PR now it's 3 not great but I've now got something I can work with

[ciml]

Are you checking the Google cache for those pages, or searching {site:domain.com domain.com} (no brackets) if you use "nocache" META tag? This helps to show for which pages the Toolbar shows a PR guess.

I still get varying results from the Toolbar, it's not stable from my desk.

[Beachboy]

Going to the page directly via the browser. As of today, that PR2 page noted in the opening message is still PR2.

[ciml]

Sorry Beachboy, I mean it's worth checking that those URLs are definitely in the index.

For a large site, or one with ?s in the URLs, the cache method of checking isn't reliable because the URL can be indexed without the page.

[Beachboy]

I owe everyone an apology. Looks like I was premature with my conclusions. The PR2 page noted in the first post has (finally) been assigned PR0. Disregard my comments above.