Just when I thought I understood PR...

[OntheEdge]

OK, so PR is a deep complicated topic that is so intriguing it has actually become an addiction to get to the bottom of it....
I was thinking I had a general idea of how it worked.
Then my not-for-profit site of mine got Googled in the big crawl.
Totally confused again. Here are the facts.
1 My index is the only page I am aware has backlinks
2 Most of the sites i backlink from are 4 to 6 PR
3 I am not aware of deeplinking to my 2nd level pages
4 my site is geocities so index is actually second level
5 the majority of my pages are on 3rd level
6 URL search says my site isn't on ggogle
7 link search says nobody links to me
BUT
8 keyword search brings up several sites with my link, plus my index

AND what really confuses me...
using google tool bar I have a 0 PR on my index (understandable, its just a casual site I built for something to do) however the next level down in my directory the pages are 6PR....even the ones with no links (templates)
Is this just a problem with toolbar not being accuate?
How does a page without any external bl's get a 6PR?

I know I'm going to regret this post, because I'm going to be bombarded with way too much info...but go for it! Help me understand.

[rmjvol]

Sounds like you're experiencing normal fluctuations of a brand new (to Google) site. If the site in question was never spidered by Google before the past few week, relax and wait a month or 2.

You might also want to search this forum for freshbot.

Good luck,
rmjvol

[ciml]

> my site is geocities so index is actually second level

I suggest that your PR6 pages don't have PR6, but show the Toolbar guess for pages that don't have PageRank.

The PR0 is almost certainly just because you don't have any reasonably high PR links yet, not a penalty.

[JayC]

I suggest that your PR6 pages don't have PR6, but show the Toolbar guess for pages that don't have PageRank.

OntheEdge, just to clarify what ciml is getting at there you might want to read some of the threads about GeoCities and PageRank. A couple of them are:

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

And you can find a lot more by searching (using the link on the top of the page) for something like "geocities pagerank."

I'd agree with his conclusion that the PR0 you're seeing is simply because there aren't yet backlinks to the page while the page is in the index; and the PR6 is a "toolbar guess" for pages that aren't yet in the index -- and is based on GeoCities PageRank.

[OntheEdge]

Thats what I thought.
I was at Google's site and saw that referance to geocities "best guesses" lol.
Personally I think **ducks** the PR is pushing Google over that fine line between IMHO and slander.
**runs and hides**
;-)

[OntheEdge]

A fine example of "Internet imitating life" It's not what you know...it's WHO you know.

[OntheEdge]

OK, but what about the other part? Is PR only for pages in the directory?
If a key word search brings up pages soley because they have a descriptive text link to me, why doesn't a link:www... work?

[JayC]

OK, but what about the other part? Is PR only for pages in the directory?
If a key word search brings up pages soley because they have a descriptive text link to me, why doesn't a link:www... work?

I'm not sure I'm following those questions... is PR only for pages in what directory? PageRank is assigned to any page in Google's index. That assigned PageRank might be anywhere from zero to ten (with the exception of Google's own 11, apparently).

New pages within a domain that has other pages in the directory are generally given a "toolbar guess" which is displayed until their real PR is calculated -- but it's not the real PageRank.

As for the second question, I think what you're getting at might be answered by the fact that the "link:" command at Google doesn't show all of the backlinks. Generally only those above a PR4 will be shown, even though the others are still contributing the the PageRank of the linked site.

[OntheEdge]

what directory>>>Google directory (i say that because it doesn't show up when an index page is displayed in search results, but if you click the directory tab and it happens to be in their directory, then you can see the PR)
i know the site has backlinks from pages with 5 and up PRs, i double checked those with the google tool bar...oh wait.. it might have been guessing.

Ah to heck with.
My site came up # 6 on a search of its name, even though it has a 0PR, and I didn't even try.