Page rank drop - anyone else notice it.

[copywriter39]

Just looking to see if anyone else has had a noticeable drop in PageRank. My home page dropped slightly, but even more disturbing is that most of my interior pages that had decent PR have none now. Just wondering if there was another round of shakeups going on, if my site has problems.

[kissels]

I've also gotten a pretty significant PR drop. My main page was PR4 and internal, secondary pages were mostly PR2. Now my main page is PR2 and my internal, secondary pages are either PR1 or PR0. One of my advertisers who is also a web develop/marketer told me that he was pretty sure that it was because I was penalized by Google for duplicate pages, as he found my main pages (and others, I believe) indexed both with and without the www (ie: www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com). Check to see if this is also true for your website. Is this possibly some kind of Google crack down??? Forcing sites to use the absolute URL (www) perhaps? Can't say that I see any fairness to penalizing for duplicate pages when, in reality, no duplicate pages exist. My site traffic, organic ranking, and income are all dropping since the PR drop.

[copywriter39]

As a matter of fact, I did a redesign on my site. I discovered yesterday that when I clicked on the home page link it went to the index.html page. I've corrected it so I'll see what happens. But that doesn't explain why the internal pages had their PR removed.

[ldylion214]

I noticed a rank drop about 3 weeks ago, too.

[jabo]

Originally Posted by ldylion214

I noticed a rank drop about 3 weeks ago, too.

yeah me too, there was loads of talk about it as well, but not this recent...

[copywriter39]

What first drew my attention was the fact that my interior pages suddenly had no PR.

[hostchecker]

Some go up , some go down. roller coaster ride

[SuperLambBanana]

Me too from a PR7 to a PR6 for no apparent reason?

[ldylion214]

A woman could drive herself crazy worrying over it. lol

[copywriter39]

I know it fluctuates, but to go from a PR of 2 for interior pages to nothing, just seems to indicate something happened.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by copywriter39

I know it fluctuates, but to go from a PR of 2 for interior pages to nothing, just seems to indicate something happened.

That is fully correct. Or the PR of the sites/pages linking to your web site dropped, or you are duplicating content within your site (including canonicalization issues), or you have infringed copyrighted content of other sites, or your pages dropped into the supplemental index, or you are facing a penalty. Did I forget something?

[crankydave]

lol John. No don't think you missed anything.

I'm going to hazzard a guess based upon some of the things I'm seeing. It appears that perhaps the threshold for pages to be included in the "main" index may have changed causing pages that otherwise may have been in that index to drop into the "other" index. TBPR would not display for those pages and would account for the internal pages losing that display.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

lol John. No don't think you missed anything.

I'm going to hazzard a guess based upon some of the things I'm seeing. It appears that perhaps the threshold for pages to be included in the "main" index may have changed causing pages that otherwise may have been in that index to drop into the "other" index. TBPR would not display for those pages and would account for the internal pages losing that display.

Dave

So do you mean that PageRank sculpting would make more sense than ever before? Or to take it a step further: Repairing the site navigation? Off-page optimization losing weight, and on page optimization weight increasing? Or what do you mean exactly?

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

So do you mean that PageRank sculpting would make more sense than ever before? Or to take it a step further: Repairing the site navigation? Off-page optimization losing weight, and on page optimization weight increasing? Or what do you mean exactly?

Google wishes to keep their "main" index at a particular size. They don't wish to simply keep adding pages to it allowing it to continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So I believe there is a "sliding threshold" pages from within a site need to meet in order for them to be included in the main index. If that threshold get's raised, then pages from within a site that once met that threshold now fall below it.

Keep in mind this is me thinking out loud... speculating.

No, I'm not a fan of PR sculpting per se. However, proper site navigation is a must and sending visitors (and spiders) through well defined and logical paths should be a priority. It's all the sculpting you really need IMO.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Google wishes to keep their "main" index at a particular size. They don't wish to simply keep adding pages to it allowing it to continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

That is absolutely true. I have filed the last year or so. number of pages for several search terms, and I can confirm that they have been reduced between 50-75%.

Originally Posted by crankydave

So I believe there is a "sliding threshold" pages from within a site need to meet in order for them to be included in the main index.

The question is, based on which criterias?

Originally Posted by crankydave

If that threshold get's raised, then pages from within a site that once met that threshold now fall below it.

That is a fair deal. Don't you think? Then more web sites have more chances to rank high too.

Originally Posted by crankydave

Keep in mind this is me thinking out loud... speculating.

No David. It is not a speculation. That is a fact. So we can stick to that. If that is BS, then we are both BSting.

Originally Posted by crankydave

No, I'm not a fan of PR sculpting per se.

I am not a fan of a screwed up algorithm, but I am still convinced that it is a strong ranking factor.

Originally Posted by crankydave

However, proper site navigation is a must and sending visitors (and spiders) through well defined and logical paths should be a priority.

I fully agree. But the problem is that the Internet is a collection of web sites with broken navigations.

Originally Posted by crankydave

It's all the sculpting you really need IMO.

That is absolutely true. When I talk about sculpting, I mean repairing a broken web site navigation.

Allow me to add here a link to an article I wrote about what I mean with PageRank Sculpting: Boost your rankings with Pagerank Sculpting - SEO Workers

Comments and improvement suggestions would be very appreciated.

[crankydave]

hehehhehe... Thanx John. You and I are on the same page more often than not.

Now, the question about "what criterias" is the crux IMO. I can point to things that I believe it is not, but not what it is. Let's take completely unique content as an example. Good thing... yes. Enough on its own... no. Even really good internal linking isn't enough when once it was.

I tend to believe that "external" influences have been pushed to the forefront. Ones that are deemed to be not, or less obvious, intended to manipulate. I tend to believe that a big swing to what is considered "natural" has missed the mark.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

I tend to believe that a big swing to what is considered "natural" has missed the mark.

Dave

I feel exactly the same Dave. And I still hope that Google will get that settled soon. At least to a certain satisfactory degree.

[JonBMX3]

If you have a juicy link that points to a homepage, for example, and then you have it changed to point to a landing page, it changes your link equity and can then effect the pagerank of your homepage.

[copywriter39]

My interior pages had PR and then didn't again. It still seems strange.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by copywriter39

My interior pages had PR and then didn't again. It still seems strange.

Perhaps, but if those pages dropped out of the main index then they would show no TBPR.

Dave

[OpticBurst.com]

Google sure is up to something. They have implemented several new features within their index and I hear the standard now is up 200 standards we must follow to achieve #1 Google Keywords. I think 2009 will be a new age in internet search. Mark this post!