Old website of mine(forgot about it) now has pretty high pr. advice?

High PR old site, not sure what to do to improve it.

[Max_Maya]

Hey, I've made a few sites in my lifetime. I'm not huge into seo or anything I just a made a site or two for fun(stuff I like etc..). In fact, the little that I probably knew a few years ago doesn't even apply today. Long story short, a website I made 3-4 years ago that I hadn't updated in forever, some how has gotten a PageRank of 5. I'll give some facts about it.

Only the main index has PR5: The posts themselves are either 0 or N/A. I think someone may have linked to it way back and their website grew enormously. That's if I understand everything correctly? I'm pretty sure most of the links(if not all) pointing to it came from the one site that grew.

On it's(my website) search engine rankings: Its not considered an authority site. While the posts get indexed, they don't rank well or pull in any traffic(very very little). I think it only ranks good for its title, which again has no traffic, but one of the words in the title is related to the overall content(a plus?).

I would like to try and get it to rank(some visits) for at least the stuff I write about. Could someone tell me if I have the right idea with my current strategies for doing that?

My strategies: I was thinking about trying to improve the internal page structure. Like adding a text menu bar at the top with topic categories(Or Top Posts For Categories) and then links to the posts in each category page. I figure if I add the links at the top they will be seen as important and might flow page rank to those posts and give them a little bit more ranking? Would it also make the site easier to crawl? I dunno, just spouting ideas here. I know external link sources are important, but I figure the best way to get those naturally are to have people see the posts in the search engines that they'll link to.

Any advice will be helpful. I've also thought about submitting to feeds. I'm not sure how helpful those are today. Are any of these ideas feasible with a PR5 site?

[tangor]

Nice surprise! Maybe we all should let sites lie fallow for a few years (or forever) and see what happens. Did you have ads income on the site?

If the site (page one) has PR5 just work from there. Also beware that if you over do anything that smells of shady SEO practices that PR5 might disappear in a minute.

This site... what page does it show on the SERPS? 1? 2?

I would like to try and get it to rank(some visits) for at least the stuff I write about. Could someone tell me if I have the right idea with my current strategies for doing that?

I'm confused, you haven't been updating in "forever"... so there's apparently no new content. The UP SIDE is that if you do present new content things just might improve!

The old saw: CONTENT IS KING, and UPDATE, RENEW, REFRESH... works a treat.

[Max_Maya]

I'm confused, you haven't been updating in "forever"... so there's apparently no new content. The UP SIDE is that if you do present new content things just might improve!

The old saw: CONTENT IS KING, and UPDATE, RENEW, REFRESH... works a treat.

I updated it like once over the past 2 years. Those posts brought in no visitors. I recently started posting again(when I saw the PR5), because I do enjoy the topic and can write regularly about it. So far, they do get indexed, but I do not get any visitors from them at all. Not even for the most random of long terms. So in short: Old posts = No traffic, New Posts = No Traffic.

The only visitors(very few by the way) I've had appear in the stats over the years seem to be people from countries that are notorious for crappy seo stuff. They were probably checking out my site because of the PageRank and they saw it on the site that links to it.

Did you have ads income on the site?

Nope, I did not and still don't have ads income on the site. I fear it actually. Don't want to do anything that might kill any factors that caused it to get where it is in that regard.

This site... what page does it show on the SERPS? 1? 2?

I assume you mean like Google's search rankings?

Here's an example(site title is changed for obvious reasons - ranking is not) lets say the title of the site is

Weather Report

:

It would be on page 7 for "Weather Report" (with no quotes)
It would be on page 6 for "WeatherReport"(with no quotes)
It would be on page 1 position 1 for "Weather Report Blog" (with no quotes)

Problem is no one searches for "Weather Report Blog". I'm not interested in ranking for any of the above searches either, I'm more interested in ranking for the content of my posts and eventually becoming an authority site.

Incase your confused, my site has nothing to do with Weather Reports and that's not the title. Just using it as an example. I'm sure there are tons of people that might search for weather reports blog. In the case of my title it's different because the words are different.

[tangor]

Thanks for the background. And I see (I think) why you are wondering what is going on. A widget subject that you enjoy and stopped posting about due to lack of interest seems to have a PR5 and still no interest.

To tell the truth, I'm not sure what to say. There ware some widget subjects that I keep on the web, visitors or not, because of my interest and absurd hubris... what can I say? I happen to like licorice widgets and post rhapsodic about them day in and day out. At the same time I also recognize this is just a fun thing for me and ANY visitor is just an unexpected benefit.

Information, fan, or opinion sites are kind of tough... a billion or so searches might occur before any user types just that phrase... and may not even get an interaction (notice) from them other than an entry into your server logs.

I guess the real question is whether one continues to invest fun and personal time on a personal project with no expectation of reward (viewers) or does one move on to something more lucrative. (Not suggesting your "weather blog" is not serious!).

I manage a number of sites (many multiples of counting on appendages of the human body) and among those are two that I do just for the fun of it, PR be damned, and... that works for me. YMMV.

I think it is interesting that a site/page has a PR5 and no visitors. Speaks highly of the content... just reveals that not all PR means squat if that rank is there without any visitors.

[Max_Maya]

Yeah, I've been reading more and more. PR has almost zero(if any) impact on where I rank for my content. Maybe PR has more to do with actual site url and title specific ranking? I'll keep adding content and see what happens. So far though, none.

I'm aware that links have always been the end all be all regarding ranking for stuff, but with the reading I've been doing, it sounds like I almost wish to do everything as natural as possible.

Using the Weather Reports example, I wouldn't want to risk writing about a hurricane or tsunami that happened in lets say florida, then link to that post with a term like "florida hurricane" and "florida tsunami". It almost sounds like Google would rather see the words "post", "story", or "click here". Which brings me back to my original question, will altering my internal link structure(rather than external linking in) improve things? Should I like save the specific keyword links for internal structure?

I remember a long time ago, I had a website that always had traffic for like random long keywords(not created for that either), you could then write posts targeting those long keyword topics and people would come flooding in without doing crazy link crap. I don't see any visitors of searches like that now at all in the stats.

I know feeds get posted or syndicated on other websites. I remember way back when, all you had to do was write like one article for a post with a link back to the post in it and like 10 other websites would use it over time on their site and just keep the link in it without really caring. I'm not sure if that would still be good today.

[onlineleben]

...always had traffic for like random long keywords

You probably still have visits with long keyphrases, but you don't see them due to Google not showing them in the Referer-String anymore.

As you are still interested in the topic, why not write something timely, like how last weeks weather (to stay with your example) influenced your life, the future of weather reports, trends in weather reporting, weather report widgets in the news. Make these posts/articles sharable and attract a few social links to these inner pages. Might help. Good luck!

[lucy24]

Query. Does PR in and of itself mean anything? No visits is no visits, whether the on-paper PR is 10^6, 0 or Too Low To Compute.

[Max_Maya]

You probably still have visits with long keyphrases, but you don't see them due to Google not showing them in the Referer-String anymore.

I do not. No visits in my stats. That's none coming from search engines.

As you are still interested in the topic, why not write something timely, like how last weeks weather (to stay with your example) influenced your life, the future of weather reports, trends in weather reporting, weather report widgets in the news. Make these posts/articles sharable and attract a few social links to these inner pages. Might help. Good luck!

Like I said earlier, I started writing again on the topic and recent news developments regarding it, as well as opinions and predictions. No visits.

Query. Does PR in and of itself mean anything? No visits is no visits, whether the on-paper PR is 10^6, 0 or Too Low To Compute.

Seems like it doesn't mean a damn thing. Just a number and in my case it keeps growing, but my visits are pretty much staying at 0.

I guess what I was asking in the beginning is do I really need to get links somehow or just start writing? I figured the more I wrote, I'd get at the very least some search traffic(even if 1 or 2 daily) maybe by people who have blogs on similar topics, but so far that's a no go.