G Page Rank woes

[grandad]

I have a fairly prominent site [*cough*] running for the last couple of years. For most of its life it had a PR of 5.

I connected today and it has suddenly dropped to 3. Have I missed something? Have I not paid my dues? Have I offended them?

Also, over the last couple of weeks, the same site has seen a doubling of traffic due to a Stumble surge, and there has been a corresponding drop in Alexa ranking. Traffic is beginning to drop to normal levels now, and my Alexa rank is rising again?

Has anyone got any idea as to how these things work? I'm not losing sleep - just wondering..

 

[link8r]

I'm starting to realise how many theories there are ! I was chatting a buddy of mine last night and we both agree (so there it is, it's in stone now - joking!!!) that the topic/category of the site affects the PageRank. This is something we've proven before and I'm now thinking about setting up 3 new blank domains to prove this, not sure if anyone cares!

Others believe, with a good deal of evidence, that PR is simply backlinks. I can't argue this - I dont have insider knowledge. RedC is an ardant fan of this. It was the basis for the Google PR that was initially patented some 10 years ago.

Our theory - it's got to have changed. PR must be relative - and in context of - the search index its dropped into. For example, take a word that is not used on the web a lot, like a name. Register that as a .com - e.g. DavidTJohnson.com. Build 20 backlinks to it, put up some content, pages, - do all the seo stuff right. chances are within a year it will be PR4. Change the page title to "Property Ireland" - I bet you $10 it'll drop to PR1.

I can't see how a website can have 30 backlinks in a narrow category and a PR of 4 can also hold the same PR in property, holdiays, car rental or other high search categories. Note: I'm talking PR, not SERP.

Perhaps your site got assessed and relative to it's neighbours within it's category, it's got less backlinks/points for it's PR ?

I have too many sites that have 3 or 4 backlinks as sumtotal with huge PR, some even as high as 5 or 6. I've taken on many as SEO projects and watched the PR drop once you change the page title from "ACME CORP LTD" to "Acme Cars Dublin" without chaging BL or even increasing it.

 

[grandad]

That would explain things if the title had changed [which it hasn't] or the number of backlinks had dropped. If anything, the backlinks have risen. I just did a Google on 'link:' and it gave 1,690 which is reasonably healthy?

Essentially, nothing has changed about the site, apart from an overall increase in traffic over the months. I could understand a drop of one point, but a two point drop overnight? Weird?

 

[link8r]

yeah, I just dont use that number at all. If you click on Google results page 5 or 10 for example, that number will probably fall very quickly


Use the Microsoft Webmasters tool to do your count check or use Backlinks Checker Tool - Backlink Watch - its so very useful!

 

[grandad]

I hadn't come across that site before. It gives a figure of 66,661. Maybe it's the Number of The Beast??

[That number seems extraordinarily high?]

 

[tomed]

I'd have to say Link8r that that's some theory, but I personally think you are way off the mark and I'd happily take you up on your bet.

I've been seeing PR fluctuation on some of our client sites over the last few days, so I'd hazard a guess that there's a PR update on the way.

My theory around PR would be on the side of links, not the quantity, but the quality. I'd also heavily put a lot done to the hirearchy strucutre that Google tends to give to PR. For example, at one stage my own site, 2bscene.net had a PR of 7. The site jumped from a PR 4 to PR 7, in Google updating terms, overnight!

The PR 7 stuck for about 2 years and then took a dramatic drop, to a 4 at one stage, and has been sitting at 6 for the last couple of years now.

What happened in that period? Well when we went from PR4 to PR 7, we completed a website that we included a link to our website from, it had a PR of 8. I can't tell you the reason for dropping back to 4 and then 6 other than I changed my my domain from 2bscene.net to 2bscene.ie.

The site that was linking to us, no longer includes a link to us, but it too has dropped to PR of 5. They were hit at the same time as those other high profile sites were hit ( Popular websites losing their high Google PageRank Tom Doyle :: TALK)

Anyway, I'm kind of going off topic here, I would put your drop down to a temporary change as Google updates.

 

[grandad]

Most of the sites that linked to mine had a PR of 4 or lower, as far as I can judge. Backlink Watch completed its scan and listed 951 [I thought 66,661 was a little optimistic?!] but didn't list the sites' pageranks.

We'll see if it is temporary. I'm not really concerned about Google, as the advertising, for some obscure reason, relies on Alexa rank for payment rates. That seem to have recovered slightly.

Actually, now that I think about it, my Alexa rank is following fairly closely with the Dow Jones Index! Or maybe it's the other way around? could my site be the cause of the financial crash?

 

[jmemarketing]

hello

Do you have had your web site, linked that google could be problerm for google?

 

[mneylon]

Google PR is a really odd thing. One of my newer blogs currently has a PR of 5, while my main personal one has a PR of 3
I've more or less given up worrying about it - as long as the sites are being crawled and appear in SERPS I'm happy enough ...

 

[Cormac]

Grandad, what's your duplicated issue like on your blog? Have you done anything to combat WP duplicated content problems?

 

[RedCardinal]

Our theory - it's got to have changed. PR must be relative - and in context of - the search index its dropped into. For example, take a word that is not used on the web a lot, like a name. Register that as a .com - e.g. DavidTJohnson.com. Build 20 backlinks to it, put up some content, pages, - do all the seo stuff right. chances are within a year it will be PR4. Change the page title to "Property Ireland" - I bet you $10 it'll drop to PR1.

I can't see how a website can have 30 backlinks in a narrow category and a PR of 4 can also hold the same PR in property, holdiays, car rental or other high search categories. Note: I'm talking PR, not SERP.

so a couple of thoughts on this - pointing 30 links at siteA (niche A) and the same links at siteB (niche B) is obviously going to have different effects. It's very likely that Google passes more weight across links from other sites in your niche, and this may also affect the flow of pagerank across those links.

Comparing 30 links pointed at siteA and 30 links pointed at siteB is like comparing apples and oranges. Even if the 30 links pointing at each target come from the same 30 sites it's possible some pass more weight to one of the targets over the others.

The other thing I'd ask you - are you talking about editorial links or links in footers, sidebars etc? I think I remember you mentioning about turning on hundreds of links from your own sites previously. Again 2 links in a footer from siteA to siteB and siteC. Sites A and B in same niche. Site C not. The link to site C may tip the threshold for spammy link while the link to siteB might not. That would affect PR flow also. Not suggesting you have spammy sites or anything, but just making the point that testing with site networks has inherent flaws.

Perhaps your site got assessed and relative to it's neighbours within it's category, it's got less backlinks/points for it's PR ?

I have too many sites that have 3 or 4 backlinks as sumtotal with huge PR, some even as high as 5 or 6. I've taken on many as SEO projects and watched the PR drop once you change the page title from "ACME CORP LTD" to "Acme Cars Dublin" without chaging BL or even increasing it.

How have you watched this? Up until quite recently Google only exported PR once every 3 or 4 months. How can you be sure that changing title affected PR? How can you be sure that Google didn't just stop counting links that you pointed at those sites? All I can say is that I've never seen nor heard of anything like this, and I'm yet to hear your response to my previous question on your theory - if this is true then does the converse hold? If I change from "Acme Cars Dublin" to "ACME CORP LTD" will my PR increase?

Rgds
Richard

 

[RedCardinal]

Just want to add in the quote:

If content didn't make a difference then both domains should have an equal PageRank after an equal amount of time with equal backlinks. The backlinks I create, I have a couple of hundred I turn on, so they are almost always the same, almost always from similar PR pages. My observation is that the domain without a highly competitive phrase doesn't need the same backlink count to get a higher PR.

That's from the other PR thread. The ability to turn on/off backlinks makes them non-editorial IMO. Very likely some of those links pass value dependent on where they are pointing. Pointing 200 links at siteA and siteB doesn't mean that the same value should also flow. I'd also be very careful basing your theories on what happens within your own network - it has it's own dynamics, and may not e representative of global reality.

Rgds
Richard

 

[link8r]

so a couple of thoughts on this - pointing 30 links at siteA (niche A) and the same links at siteB (niche B) is obviously going to have different effects. It's very likely that Google passes more weight across links from other sites in your niche, and this may also affect the flow of pagerank across those links.

Why would more weight be passed to SiteA than SiteB for example? If the links are in a similar position on the pages? The relevance of oldsite1 and oldsite2 must be passed equally to both?

The other thing I'd ask you - are you talking about editorial links or links in footers, sidebars etc? I think I remember you mentioning about turning on hundreds of links from your own sites previously. Again 2 links in a footer from siteA to siteB and siteC. Sites A and B in same niche. Site C not. The link to site C may tip the threshold for spammy link while the link to siteB might not. That would affect PR flow also. Not suggesting you have spammy sites or anything, but just making the point that testing with site networks has inherent flaws.

Yip, it's not exactly a controlled environment. And having only access to the PR on a 1-10 scale is a bit blunt.

I'm going to back to the criteria for the observation is on sites with low inbound links. Where a site has a PR of 4 but has less than 10 inbound links. We're talking fairly rubbish links here - probably no anchor text, no great relevance. The typical ones would be from the website designer (portfolio), the domain registration watch sites, the odd directory link, a link from a site owned by the owner.

I guess you'll be able to take my point from this and give your thoughts on this: If the PR is exclusively down to backlinks and the content on the pages those links are coming from, then how do these sites develop a PageRank of 4/10 ? Within a year.

All I can say is that I've never seen nor heard of anything like this

Nope, there's not a lot of information except on 3rd party websites, like Wikipedia, but then all such sites cannot be produced as gospel, so it's pointless quoting them. There is very little information from Google itself. It's an observation we've noted over the past 3 years or so. We watch it because simply put we record the PageRank when we report back to the clients - and most of the time, they're curious about the PR drop. This coul be 1 month or 2 months or 3 months afterward - depends obviously when the PR export is done. We check the PR on the domian name and the index file (sometimes www.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com/index.html) have different PR's in the toolbar. Toolbar guessing?

and I'm yet to hear your response to my previous question on your theory - if this is true then does the converse hold? If I change from "Acme Cars Dublin" to "ACME CORP LTD" will my PR increase?

I missed this, apologies. I've never gone back, so I have no observations for it ... its a good question. I don't know. I've recently discovered just how strong the Google memory is for keywords it associates with sites, its very good. Even if you change the site. So I guess it might depend on what you move back to.

 

[link8r]

That's from the other PR thread. The ability to turn on/off backlinks makes them non-editorial IMO. Very likely some of those links pass value dependent on where they are pointing. Pointing 200 links at siteA and siteB doesn't mean that the same value should also flow. I'd also be very careful basing your theories on what happens within your own network - it has it's own dynamics, and may not e representative of global reality.

True. I'm only dealing with 100's of sites, not tens of thousands, it's a very small sample rate. I've mentioned it to other SEO's that I know and they agree. Doesn't mean it's right!

 

[link8r]

I've read this a few times - PageRank reflecs our view of the importance of PageRank by considering 2 billion terms - so there is a relationship between page rank and the terms. It doesn't state if the terms are taken from your page or the page linking to you only.

PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

My interpretation of this is the that PageRank is more than just backlinks - it's also about which search terms your site is relevent to. So PageRank is how important your site is in relation to other sites for a category/term/phrase. Thus being in a bigger directory means you have to have more of the other PR factors in effect in order to have a higher PR.

 

[RedCardinal]

Why would more weight be passed to SiteA than SiteB for example? If the links are in a similar position on the pages? The relevance of oldsite1 and oldsite2 must be passed equally to both?

Absolutely not. Google discounts many links. Probably in fact the majority of links it finds. Link#1 from SiteC to SiteA might be relevant and included, while Link#2 from SiteC to SiteB may be less relevant, trip a signal, and be ignored. Link#1 would carry weight and PR, while Link#2 may not.

I'm going to back to the criteria for the observation is on sites with low inbound links. Where a site has a PR of 4 but has less than 10 inbound links. We're talking fairly rubbish links here - probably no anchor text, no great relevance. The typical ones would be from the website designer (portfolio), the domain registration watch sites, the odd directory link, a link from a site owned by the owner.

I guess you'll be able to take my point from this and give your thoughts on this: If the PR is exclusively down to backlinks and the content on the pages those links are coming from, then how do these sites develop a PageRank of 4/10 ? Within a year.

Just my opinion, but I think that what Google has been showing in the toolbar has for quite some time been bastardised. I think it will only be a matter of time before it is complete rubbish - that would be the easiest way for them to retire TBPR. Just my imagination at work, but I'm pretty sure they'd love to retire it, but the problem is they created this monster by basing their marketing around PageRank.

We watch it because simply put we record the PageRank when we report back to the clients - and most of the time, they're curious about the PR drop. This coul be 1 month or 2 months or 3 months afterward - depends obviously when the PR export is done. We check the PR on the domian name and the index file (sometimes www.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com/index.html) have different PR's in the toolbar. Toolbar guessing?

Technically that means you have canonical problems, but I'm pretty confident that Google sees www.example.com/index.EXT and Example Web Page as the same page where they should. This change was introduced about 1yr ago. That's not to say there may not have been other issues in some of the cases you refer to however.

I missed this, apologies. I've never gone back, so I have no observations for it ... its a good question. I don't know. I've recently discovered just how strong the Google memory is for keywords it associates with sites, its very good. Even if you change the site. So I guess it might depend on what you move back to.

So the biggest problem with some of your theories as see them, and I'm not trying to say I'm right and you're wrong BTW, is that it is very difficult to asses causality in such massively dynamic systems. With the amount of data points Google is using for it's calculations, what you and I think we see, and ascribe causality to, is more likely than not even a factor in the outcomes observed.

 

[RedCardinal]

I've read this a few times - PageRank reflecs our view of the importance of PageRank by considering 2 billion terms - so there is a relationship between page rank and the terms. It doesn't state if the terms are taken from your page or the page linking to you only.

What makes you sure that 'terms' == keywords. Google spreads lots and lots of FUD in order to mask what it does.

My interpretation of this is the that PageRank is more than just backlinks - it's also about which search terms your site is relevent to. So PageRank is how important your site is in relation to other sites for a category/term/phrase. Thus being in a bigger directory means you have to have more of the other PR factors in effect in order to have a higher PR.

Personally I still believe that PR is purely driven by the PR of the links that point at a given resource. The changes I think they have likely rolled in revolve around which links they count, and how they weight those links. That's purely based on what I hear Googler's saying. No tests, and likely no way to test that thesis.

 

[link8r]

Absolutely not. Google discounts many links. Probably in fact the majority of links it finds. Link#1 from SiteC to SiteA might be relevant and included, while Link#2 from SiteC to SiteB may be less relevant, trip a signal, and be ignored. Link#1 would carry weight and PR, while Link#2 may not.

Can you go into more depth on why would link#2 from SiteC to SiteB be less relevant than the link#1 to SiteA

Just my opinion, but I think that what Google has been showing in the toolbar has for quite some time been bastardised. I think it will only be a matter of time before it is complete rubbish - that would be the easiest way for them to retire TBPR. Just my imagination at work, but I'm pretty sure they'd love to retire it, but the problem is they created this monster by basing their marketing around PageRank.

Probably, given that so many SEO's don't believe in it's relevance.

Technically that means you have canonical problems, but I'm pretty confident that Google sees www.example.com/index.EXT and Example Web Page as the same page where they should. This change was introduced about 1yr ago. That's not to say there may not have been other issues in some of the cases you refer to however.

And you'd be right. I've no idea why I posted that now.

So the biggest problem with some of your theories as see them, and I'm not trying to say I'm right and you're wrong BTW, is that it is very difficult to asses causality in such massively dynamic systems. With the amount of data points Google is using for it's calculations, what you and I think we see, and ascribe causality to, is more likely than not even a factor in the outcomes observed.

If you mean the theory that changing a page title and/or meta tags can cause a PageRank to drop - probably would be very difficult to prove.

But can you explain how a website with 1-3 backlinks can have a PageRank of 4 or 5 if BL is the only factor?

 

[RedCardinal]

Can you go into more depth on why would link#2 from SiteC to SiteB be less relevant than the link#1 to SiteA

SiteA = entertainment site
SiteB = car hire site
SiteC = music site

Link#1 (C->A) relevant
Link#2 (C->B) not relevant

Google likely filters out link value by the relevance between linking and target sites.

If you mean the theory that changing a page title and/or meta tags can cause a PageRank to drop - probably would be very difficult to prove.

But can you explain how a website with 1-3 backlinks can have a PageRank of 4 or 5 if BL is the only factor?

Set up a domain and get a link from Adobe HP and no other links. I'd be surprised
if that domain doesn't get TBPR6 or TBPR7 next update. But the main reason is that I'm quite sure that they've been exporting FUD in the toolbar for quite some time.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this opinion a few times in the past.

 

[link8r]

I asked how a site could have a PageRank of 4 or 5 with rubbish links - not from Adobe or HP .... that was the basis and context for my argument.

Having a PR6/7 from a link from Adobe etc makes sense.