How do I Get a PR Rating Again?

PR Rating Needed

[RDavis]

I just registered and started reading all the threads on Google indexing and now I know the importance of a PR Rating and also what mine currently is thanks to this forum.

Basically, I need to know howto get a PR rating for my site again. Currently the PR bar is all white when I go to my website <no specific site references please>; and it says 0/10

I know I must have had a PR at one time because in the months of October and November, 2001 I was on the first page in positions 1, 2,3, 5,6,7 & 8. The keywords used for my site were low cost web site hosting, web hosting, etc.

I also found out that I have one description in their directory and another one when I just type in my website address.

I have also checked my links and I do have quite a few inbound ones.

Since AOL is now using them, this has also recently affected my placement there, as well. Up until 7/22, I was on the first page of results in AOL.

Please help.

Reba Davis

[edited by: rcjordan at 7:29 pm (utc) on Aug. 8, 2002]
[edit reason] domain referenced [/edit]

[nancyb]

Hi Reba and Welcome to Webmasterworld.

If you used to have a google ranking and now don't you might want to read these two recent threads for some possible insight. A white toolbar may indicate some kind of penalty.

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

There are lots of other threads about this so if these two don't answer your questions, try the search feature.

Also, if you put you domain in your profile someone may be able to take a look and give some advice.

[diddlydazz]

Hi Rdavis,

Welcome to Webmasterworld :)

I managed to have a look at your site before the url was removed, as Nancyb said if you put your site in your profile people can have a look.

The first thing I would do is check all your outbound links to make sure you are not linking to a site that is penalised, I have not checked them all personally but I found a couple that return 404s (in your business directory section).

Always keep on top of your outbound links they *can* cause some serious problems.

Also Google is showing no inbound links although AV, AllTheWeb, Hotbot and MSN are all showing inbound links, although Google only shows inbound links with a certain PR criteria (commonly believed to be PR4 and above) I would be a bit suspicious as to why Google shows none at all, as this could indicate a penalty.

As suggested by Nancyb do a sitesearch (link at top of page) for PR0 and you will have lots of info at your disposal.

Hope this helps

Dazz

[JayC]

in the months of October and November, 2001 I was on the first page in positions 1, 2,3, 5,6,7 & 8.

Your site was listed in seven of the top eight positions all for the same search query? Or do you mean you had those positions for various terms?

Cause if it was the former, I'd give you a PR0 myself if I could! :)

[RDavis]

Hi Nancyb,

Thank you. I put my site in the Profile. Oops, didn't know I was not suppose to put in the Post.

Hi Dazz,

What does "PRO" stand for?

Hi JayC,

For clarification, it was for different search terms, i.e. web page cost; web hosting...

[Tapolyai]

It is not PRO it's PR0 or PR zero (number zero).

That is the PageRank you have in the range of 0 to 10.

[lazyz]

It looks like your listed in DMOZ and that alone would give you at least some page rank. I can see several other domains that contain your domain name and chances are they link to you (I didn't check every page). My best guess... You are being punished. I've been there before and after several months of attempting to get back in the index, I ended up buying a new domain.

My advice - read these forums, pay attention to "cross linking" and linking in general. Your link exchange partners might of made you a target for Page Rank Zero!

[RDavis]

Hi lazyz,

Thank you for your comments. The reason I set up the Link Exchange Partners was to legitimately get inbound links. When you say "Your link exchange partners might of made you a target for Page Rank Zero!" Why would that happen? Do I need to only link to sites that have a certain PR?

Is there a way to find out why and if one is penalized, so one will know what they need to do rather then guessing?

[JayC]

The reason I set up the Link Exchange Partners was to legitimately get inbound links.

Well the problem with that lies, I suppose, in how one defines "legitimately." If you read the "dont's" section of Google's "Dos and Don'ts" [google.com] page, you'll see that they probably define it differently than you do, since among their statements is "Don't participate in link exchanges for the sole purpose of increasing your ranking in search engines."

Link farms and link exchanges are risky propositions.

[Tapolyai]

This might be a bit off-topic...but when does a link farm become a directory?

How does Google make the distinction between a directory (Yahoo, DMOZ, etc.) and a link farm?

This suggest that PageRank has a DB that contains specific factor per link farms/directories.

This of course would also explain how someone can "change" a PR0 site to high one, manually.

[JuniorHarris]

A directory would contain related topics whereas a link farm would be unrelated sites.

[Tapolyai]

That is it? That is the only distinction?

Then I would say many link farms are directories.

Here is a more important question, when do you become a link farm? I have a public "Favorites" page where members can post links for everyone to see. They are not related to each other at all. when does this page become a "link farm"?

[JayC]

I would think of a link farm as being pretty much the equivalent of an FFA site -- so part of what distinguishes it from a directory is that the latter has a method of selecting appropriate links, usually by human review, while the former has and allows unfiltered links.

In some ways the distinction isn't really important. For example, there are any number of dmoz clone sites on the web that have a PageRank of zero. Most could be properly called "directories." But for some purposes it doesn't matter whether you are technically a link farm or a directory; what's more important is what the search engines think you are.

[Tapolyai]

it doesn't matter whether you are technically a link farm or a directory; what's more important is what the search engines think you are.

Back to the origin of the message - PageRank.

If what you say is true, which I believe so, then PageRank is not all what is purported to be. It has a lot of manual tinkering.

Not just that, if I happen to start a competing service to Google, what would prevent them from making my site a PR0, in essence dooming it from people linking to it?

Where am I going with this? Wake up and smell reality. Google is not all-truistic any more, maybe when it was a research project yes, but no longer. The all-mighty $ talks.

I guess I am sad to see an era of the Internet when things were done because it was logical and/or idealistic.

[kfander]

I put a new site up a couple of months ago. Most of my other sites rank reasonably well in Google and, except for some Amazon links, this one is not even a commercial site.

The site is listed pretty much everywhere except Yahoo, including DMOZ and the Google directory that is derived from it, yet it recently went from the grayed out (not ranked) to a white (0/10) PR. Even when I search directly on the domain name itself, my listing comes in last, after that of several other directories that list it. The site has been spidered and cached by Google.

I know that I haven't done anything that should have triggered a ban, and have been trying to figure out what might have gone wrong.

Does this sometimes happen before a site is finally given a reasonable page rank, or am I screwed?