Every three months Google recalculates Page Rank for all of the sites they track. Many people have speculated on what things you can do to help and/or harm your Page Rank. It would seem that I have done something to harm my Page Rank as I have dropped from a five to a three.
I do not know what I have done other than adding more outgoing links to the blog. I have heard that out linking has the ability to bleed off your Page Rank but I never thought it would bleed off this much!
Just the other day I tried using an online Page Rank prediction tool and it showed me going from PR 5 to PR 6. Now it shows me going from PR 3 to PR 6.
Now, please understand that PR is not the be all end all of your web site but it does influence the amount of money you can charge advertisers. It is also a metric used by the new range of sponsored posting companies. My Alexa is still hovering right about 125K with a weekly number in the 40K range so there is some good news out there!
The only other thing I have recently done is move my blog from hmtk.com/blog to hmtk.com. Could Google be penalizing me because the root site is now a blog?
I guess Google does not really love me after all?
- I’m real popular in Slovenia
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I wonder when the real page ranks are coming? I hope the predictions are right and I get a 5. Doesn’t Google have some admin tools to check stuff?
I don’t know but I feel like I just got hit with the “Google hates blogs” stick!
Not sure about the Google Hates Blogs thing. Usually blogs are very well received by Google (have you registered your site with Google Blog search?). New sites are actually advised to build on a blog platform to get the initial PR from Google.
In any case, I reckon the main reason your PR went down was the platform change. If for a little while search results lead to dead pages, Google may have re-interpreted it as dead links. More so, since you are doing all these htaccess redirects, Google is probably frowning upon this.
Bottom line, you’ll get your PR back in the next round.
I hope to be able to remove the redirects soon. Most of the search engines are using my sitemap and have updated their old links.
They’re also pretty strict with any SEO tricks that fall foul of what’s acceptable. Better than digg but they can still hit hard. I think you can get in touch with their customer service or something if it really bothers you. It can make a big difference as you say.
None of my sites have changed, yet at least. Maybe just a hiccup? Also, your Toolbar PR is showing as a 2 on my end.
Aawwww….I’m sure Google will love you again.
I’ve never heard of the “Google hates blog” thing. Where did you hear that?
You just have to give it time, but those pagerank prediction tools are worthless.
I was wondering how accurate that page rank prediction tool is. Or even PR prediction tools in general.
I entered Kumiko’s “guess her PR” contest and just tried using the same PR prediction tool that Steve used. It predicts her PR to be 6. I guessed she’d have a PR of 5 and am wondering if I should change it to 6.
Heck it has me going from a PR of 3 to 5! I can’t imagine such a big leap for my blog.
Eh. If the tools are worthless, my wine-sipping-random-factoid-correlation form of prediction should be just as good.
Yep, I read your article and then tested out my site. It was showing 5 to 6. This morning I checked and it showed 3 to 6!
Yep, I don’t think these prediction tools are particularly accurate either. I’ve seen ranges on my blog from 3 to 5 on different days. Now mostly Iweb’s tool just doesn’t work.
I also moved my blog around, and lost PR5 to PR4. Luckily, it didn’t go to 0. It seems Google takes quite a time to catch up, as you end up with a lot of 404s in the spider search. I think my logs are now showing fewer not found than before.
I don’t think that PPP will affect pagerank as much, but we’ll see….!
Kenneth
I got knocked from a pagerank 3 to a pagerank 2 immediately after I did about a 100 payperpost posts on my blog. I stopped doing payperpost and my pagerank has gone back up to 3.
I will be dumping PPP as soon as my last payment comes in.
Ive just signed up with them, it will be interesting to see if I suffer the same fate!
BTW, unless I have missed it you still havent written about the hike in your review me price??
wondering why your page links on the homepage are nofollow? Are you using 301 redirects to move to the root?
No, I had to use a specialized redirect file because the old blog put “?”after the index.php file for each post.
They should not be nofollow, is that something in WordPress that I need to fix?
When do you expect Google to make their latest PR announcement? Is it just sort of a “soon” thing, or do they usually follow a set schedule?
My page rank is still 3…I have more backlinks and stuff..I thought I would increase by at least one, but I guess now. :(
Yeah, for some reason, “My SysAd Blog” went from a PR4 to a PR3. I have a lot more posts on it and a few more blogs link to it and my traffic increased almost 9X. But I did remove the Adsense from it. Oh well, this ranking thing is fickled.
Yep.
Since I’ll be dumping PPP once I get my last payment I’m not so concerned with PR anymore.
Well, TLA does use it to set rates but they also use Alexa.
I would have thought it would be the other way round if anything, penalising you for being in a sub directory.
I would suggest it has more to do with established pages acruing rank over time, and, after moving your site you would have to rebuild that element of the PR.
Well, I would never bet on the predict PR tools. Most are flawed. (How you know what Google is thinking, anyway?) The only thing to do is to consistently work on the site and await for the results.
I agree, most of them are flawed. Also, Google has so many data centers around the world and different computers show different PR.