Changes to Page Ranking???

[mmmpph]

Several days ago, I went to one of our sites' home page only to note in horror that our PR had gone from 6 to 0. I did a link check immediately and found that there were none where there had been 1500 or so the day before. An hour later, our PR had returned along with links, 5 mins later... gone again... an hour later all back again. This scenario went on for about two days and then stabilized where we started. Thankfully, it has stayed there.

Since then, I have noted a major change in that when we used to create a new page, it would immediately be given at least a 3 PR. Now I note that new pages and many less popular pages do not have a PR at all. I've noted this on other sites as well. While this change would reflect more accuracy, I am wondering if this reflects other PR changes. Coincidently or not, with these changes, we saw an immediate 30% increase in our Google traffic.

Anybody else?

[Advisor]

mmmpph...there seem to be many posts here on the same subject. Check out some of the others in this dance forum, and in the regular Google forum. It appears to just be Google fooling around with some new experiments and it doesn't mean much in the big picture -- yet at least.

Jill

[Gordon]

I've noticed that many of the sites that are linking to mine have lost their page rank. Sometimes their homepage has retained it's page rank, but the links pages have gone to PR0 or greyed out. This seems to be true of many sites that have a large quantity of reciprocal links. This may account for a general drop in backward links. Could it be that a site can now have too many links out? Is this part of Google's new strategy to penalise reciprocal linking for it's own sake?

Gordon

[ihelpyou]

Relax everyone. We all have sites right now that are either PR0 or lost EVERY backlink, or Both. We all have sites right now that Nothing different has happened at all yet.

There are "changes" going on as we speak with Google. You cannot possibly analyze a darn thing right now. No one can. No one should.

Give it a couple more weeks or even one month or longer, and look at things again. It does no one any good to speculate what might be going on or what might be happening with what or when or how.

Patience. :)

[Gordon]

That's not a very scientific attitude Ihelpyou, it's just as well our scientists, mathmaticians, police, poloticians etc. don't take that attitude! Observation, investigation and interpretation are all part of the learning process, and satisfy our natural thirst for knowledge. It may or may not serve a useful purpose here, or increase our understanding of how Google works, but it's all we have to go on, and not least, it's good fun, especially when our reasoning turns out to be correct.

[ihelpyou]

I know. And that's why I've never called myself a scientist nor do I ever use math or science with the search engines. :)

But it does seem silly to try and speculate on stuff when what we see now is not what we will see later.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the 'dance' threads. I get a huge chuckle out of knowing some out there are really stressing and worrying about all of this. :D

Not you Gordon, as you make some good posts in here, but the internet in general is really antsy and stressing. :)

[tomj]

Hi Gordon,

I must concur with Doug and others on this forum about what is going on with Google right now. It is very easy to panic when PR and back links are inconsistent. This has been going on for a number of weeks and there is no real rhyme or reason for it other than Google experimenting with something new.

At first I thought that they had some sort of crash because of old data and missing back links...I now think the best course of action is to do something very hard...NOTHING! At least until things stabilize.

Formely webmasters held thier breadth while the Google Dance was happening and waited to see next months results. Things have changed now and thier isn't anybody anywhere including here, who knows exactly what is happening.

Do the basic things to your web site to make visitors happy and I know all will be well with any webmaster who doesn't use any spam techniques, artificiall page ranking tricks or making any major changes until the dust settles!

tomj

[microdoc]

Received a message from Google indicating that many of the PR0 problems will not be rectified until mid-June. Settling in of the new algorithms is going much slower than expected. I was told not to worry until about late June. In the meantime, many of the PR0 sites are getting as good if not better Google traffic right now.

[webgator]

Microdoc I hope I am not replying to an old thread..but how do know this?

[rockynate]

Thought I'd tack-on to this thread rather than start a new one...

But I've seen very rapid changes in the last two days. Many sites popping from PR0 to PR5 or 6. Several of mine going grey bar and then PR0 and back again in minutes.

Thought I might have a funky Google Toolbar again!

But the activity in relation to PR, at least in my sphere of observation, has been really hopping lately.

Perhaps we're seeing a "PR Dance". SERPS don't seem to fluctuate wildly like at the beginning of May, but just the PR is hopping.

[microdoc]

Originally posted by webgator
Microdoc I hope I am not replying to an old thread..but how do know this?

I received a note from a PR person in Google to whom I had directed my question.