Google Re-examines Recent PR Update
SEO May 4th, 2007
The Unofficial SE Blog is reporting that Google will be re-examining the recent toolbar Page Rank update that saw many sites losing PR or evening dropping to a PR0.
That’s good news to me because something fishy is going on. A couple of weeks ago I checked in at Google Webmaster Central on a client’s stats and was stunned to find that Google was reporting practically no backlinks for this site. My client’s site has thousands of pages, ranks extremely well, has been around for over ten years and normally has thousands of backlinks.
I assumed it was a Google reporting error and was pleased to see that a few days later, things were back to normal.
Then came the PR update. The main page to the site dropped from a PR6 to PR4. This makes no sense as the site has done nothing but build great content, gain trusted backlinks and increase traffic over the years. Granted, PR is really a vanity thing and has little if anything to do with how a site is really doing, but this seems strange anyway.
So, I went over to the Xenyo Page Rank Verification Tool and checked the URL. Still a PR4 but I noticed something else. This tool only shows 217 backlinks for the URL. I ran a backlink check in Web CEO and it also shows only 217. Google Webmaster Central currently reports over 2700 for the main URL! What’s going on here? I popped over to Yahoo Site Explorer and found 5,588 backlinks pointing to this URL, a big difference from 217!
I have no absolute proof that any of this is related to the weird goings-on with the toolbar PR, but I look forward to a re-review by Google. Should be interesting. Something is definitely going X-Files in backlink land!
If you found this page useful, consider linking to it.
Simply copy and paste the code below into your web site (Ctrl+C to copy)
It will look like this: Google Re-examines Recent PR Update
The Web Optimist
[...] It is rare that I go through article directories, but I found a very interesting article over at GoArticles.com that discusses the recent Google toolbar Page Rank update that has thrown a lot of site owners into a tizzy. I mention some of my findings in my post Google Re-examines Recent PR Update. Anyway, Ba Kiwanuka brings up a lot of good observations in his article Has Your Website Been Google Slapped? In a nutshell, he sees Google as positioning itself for the almighty dollar. Everything it does to us, the little guys, is to attract big bucks in advertising. So, knocking down PR on some sites that are doing things like, horrors, selling paid links, will cascade down the line and also knock down PR for the guys at the end of the line. Hate to rain on the PR parade, but the Google storm cloud has arrived. [...]