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You can leave the pages where they are and simply change your linking structure if you want to try and pass some additional PR to those pages.
simply change your linking structure
loathe as I am to disagree with an administrator, my experience doesn't seem to support the argument.
Isn't that click stream surely intrinsically related to your directory structure and navigation anyway.
We have old and disused junk pages in our upper most folder with PR7's, one folder down form the main home page which has a PR 8.
They don't have any links back to them at all, at least not anymore, and I'm pretty sure if they do, its not through html links, and more likely javascript. There certainly aren't any inetrnal or external backlinks to them showing on Google.
Pondering architecture revamps on this theory at the mo, so very keen to discuss.
cheers
Dubya
If you really must play with directories, my advice (after getting repetitive strain injury) is use the opportunity to optimize filenames, leave the old file in place awhile with a robots noindex tag and upload the new urls to altavista ASAP (AV is a real pain if you don't pay them money - not that AV yields much traffic anyhow)
We have old and disused junk pages in our upper most folder with PR7's, one folder down form the main home page which has a PR 8.
A page no one links to has no PR. Remember that the toolbar will often just guess what PR a page has -- and it does that on the basis of directory structure. If your index page is PR8, and an orphan page is one directory down, it will generallyy appear to have PR7, even if it has no PR at all.
Isn't that click stream surely intrinsically related to your directory structure and navigation anyway.
Andreas
home -> PR 6
subdir/subdir/site1.htm - no direct link from home = PR 4
subdir/subdir/site2.htm - made a direct link from home = PR 5
So, like ciml, andreas and other's said: linking strukture and directory structure are two different things. I wouldn't bother rebuilding the directory structure unless it's unlogic or uncomfortable to maintain (for you, the webmaster). You can't expect any PR increase or decrease at all just by moving everything one level ub.
I have two pages which both are indexed by Google.
Front number is PR given by Google.
5 /
5 /en/
I created 4 new files and 2 new directories.
Like this:
4 /new-page.php
3 /new-directory/new-page.php
3 /en/new-page.php
2 /en/new-directory/new-page.php
As Google cannot have indexed those new files,
the PR must have been guessed by Google (-Toolbar).
It interesting, the PR must be calculatet from PR of
the root / only.
PS: Never link to your new pages!
Your PR could drop drastically like
any new [geocities.com...]
from PR8 to PR0 :-)
Never link to your new pages!
You lost me on this. How is anyone going to know you have a new page and how will Google find it if you don't link to it?
I know it takes some time for Google to rank a new page and usually it gives the estimated rank until then. I do have a new page that was set at PR5 (the root page is PR6). Now that the update is over it's gone to PR0 which was new to me, usually they get some level of PR after the update. So now I'm wondering if I did something wrong. Any ideas?
Anne
Never link to your new pages!You lost me on this. How is anyone going to know you have a new page and how will Google find it if you don't link to it?
He was joking anne.
<thwaps puzzled on the nose with a newspaper>
Stop confusing the other members. ;)
Now that the update is over it's gone to PR0 which was new to me, usually they get some level of PR after the update.
Anne
I created 4 new files and 2 new directories.Like this:
4 /new-page.php
3 /new-directory/new-page.php
3 /en/new-page.php
2 /en/new-directory/new-page.php
In my case, the PR is reduced by exactly 2 at one sub-directory level. It is not a guessed PR because I can find backlinks. This was the reason I thought moving up one level might help.
Well, after reading so many sugguestions, I decided to leave the directory structure as it is.
By linking to a page that has guessed pagerank, specifically geocities pages that start as PR8, you end up giving them real pagerank, which will invariably be lower than geocities guessed rank.
As for the two directory down thing, the concept is still "clicks from the main page". By putting something two directories down from a PR5 page, Google guesses that means two clicks and gives it PR3. It means very little because once the update comes you get real page rank, when Google discovers if it is actually two clicks away, or one, or ten. It does mean something temporarily as Fresh page results.
Even after the update I find that the page a new page is linked from influences the PR. For example if it is just one link away from a PR7 it will proably be PR6.
Anne
It means very little because once the update comes you get real page rank, when Google discovers if it is actually two clicks away, or one, or ten. It does mean something temporarily as Fresh page results.
That hasn't been my experience. Google always guesses the PR of my "fresh" articles as 2 (because they're a couple of subdirectories down), but the pages tend to rank ahead of most competitors' pages on SERPs for at least a while after they're published. In fact, they often rank #1 right out of the starting gate. I think Google may give more weight to the "freshness factor" than to PageRank when ranking newly published pages.
So what about moving the pages to the directory with the higher PR7, and moving the links that point to those pages, to pointing to them at their new location?
Your intrigued
Dubya
domain.ext PR8
domain.ext/ has a PR7
but all of the pages are in a root folder set on the IIS at
domain.ext/.../.../pages.asp and various domain.ext/.../.../.../'s
they have pr5's and pr4's.
Its been like this for some time, many many many months, possibly years, and the pages in the PR7 directory which is unused and has other redundant pages in is showing pages with a PR7.
Now surely thee page ranks would have been adjusted if 'real page rank' had been applied.
Now surely thee page ranks would have been adjusted if 'real page rank' had been applied.
I think they are adjusted or re-evaulated anyway. Most of my pages stay the same as the first Google guess but some actually gain in PR and get the same PR as the linking page. Since these pages seldom have links from outside sites the internal linking pattern must make a big difference.
!I just looked at one of my sites and think I see the difference that gets the better rankings after the update!
I have my most important articles linked in a column on the left of almost every page in the site. I did this for the convienience of my visitors but Google must like it as well! These pages have the same ranking as the root page. The ones that are not listed in the side column are still one less in PR.
Anne
directory with the higher PR7
It is the page refered to by an URI ending with a directory that has a PR of 7. It is not the directory in your webserver“s filesystem that has this PR. So copying a page into that directory will not help at all.
Andreas
The pages are one click away from the home page (PR8). But they're a few folders down in domain.ext/.../.../.../pages.asp
Both the home page and sub pages are indexed in Google too.
But they show a PR4.
Now click path wise (if I understand everyone correctly) the sub pages should be a pr7.
What's the crack here?
Also to throw a spanner in work...the root folder is set on IIS to a folder 2 folders down at
domain.ext/.../.../
If the page has a "?" in the URL then the Toolbar guesses, even when there's real PageRank. Has the link from the PR8 home page been there for more than two updates?
> the root folder is set on IIS to a folder 2 folders down at domain.ext/.../.../
That doesn't affect the URL. Googlebot isn't reading the directory structure of your Web server.
If the page has a "?" in the URL then the Toolbar guesses, even when there's real PageRank.
So is there anyway to tell the real PageRank of a page with a "?" in the URL?
Also, could somebody briefly explain how y'all have figured out that directory structure has no effect of PR?
Many search engines in the past have looked at directory structure for relevance, but Google does not.
The "one point per directory" concept exists because in most cases, directory structure is very similar to linking structure.
domain.com links to domain.com/dir1/index.html which links to domain.com/dir1/dir2/index.html[/b] etc.
In that scenario, the structure is that same as the click path. With each click, PR is diluted so the deeper directories end up with much less.
However, if domain.com links directly to domain.com/dir1/dir2/index.html, then that page's PR will increase and it will roughly be the same as domain.com/dir1/index.html.
It is one of the few SEO theories that is fairly easy to test. Just find a very deep page on your site, right down its current PR and then link to it from your home page. After a cycle or two, you will clearly be able to see that PR is in know way tied to directory structure.
"If the page has a "?" in the URL then the Toolbar guesses, even when there's real PageRank."
Where'd this come from? I have plenty of URLs with "?" that are at identical places in the directory structure which have toolbar PR and are cached by G. One page with several backlinks has a PR5 and another with fewer has a PR4. Both pages are cached and in the database. How is this guessed PR?
On this forum we have discussed directory structure over and over again and I think the consensus is it makes no difference where in you structure a page is. I have several pages that are sixes which are layers deep. I also have plenty of fours that are right at the surface.
There are a ton of comments in this thread where the poster is referring to a "guessed" PR as if it matters in the serps. It doesn't. A guessed PR in my experience is exclusively a page that isn't in the database. So if a page isn't in the database, what difference does the PR in the toolbar make?
IMHO PR is purely a function of the quality of links to a page. In other words:
Real PR times dampening factor divided by number of outbound links is how you figure the transfer of PR. If a page has no inbound links, it most likely doesn't have any PR. But you may not find the inbound links on G because they are of too low a PR to show. Put another way, alol inbound links are not shown by G but they most likely are included in the calc or PR.
One really good point has been made in this thread is the results of using good directory names in order to rise in the serps. I have seen it work very well for me.
