Why did I loose PR?

[Breckenridge Real Estate]

My index page went from PR5 to PR4 with this most recent update and I lost on many of my internal pages as well.

During the time since the April update and this one, I have been continuing my linking campaign. But I have not been working on it nearly as hard as I had been earlier in the year. Basically, I have just been swapping with people who find me. I have not spent much time hunting for links.

Is this most likely the reason that I have lost PR?

Also, I had shifted from getting index page links to getting internal ones.

Could this have an effect?

Anyway, my rankings are actually slightly better than when I last checked a couple of weeks ago so I am not too worried. I just wonder if I am going to have to step up my linking efforts again to get back to PR5.

[kyle422]

I've seen many sites lose some PR this update. If your SERPS haven't suffered, which is by far more important, I would not worry too much.

[kensmith]

OK a couple of quick tips about PR. PR is on a scale and one PR5 isn't the same as all of the other PR5's out there. You might have been on the very low end of PR 5 and as more and more pages are added to G's index the total amout of PR has increased, thus it takes more to be a PR5. You might have the exact same amount of PR, but the scale just became a little harder.

Something that very well may have happen that could have effected you if you had been a borderline PR5 is the devauling of your inbound links. Here is a very typical link, you agree to an exchange as the person has on 5 links on the page and it's a PR3 page, then over time it now has 50 links and it is still a PR3 and is passing much less PR to it's link partners.

Next you should check to see if you link partners are still linking to you. Every time I check there are at least a few that have removed my link. With the loss of a few higher PR links you could easily drop in PR.

Also there have been some links pages that have lost PR and been removed from G index (lost a PR5 link due to this ).

All of these factors add up to a loss of PR and with a scale that becomes harder and harder it's not hard to see why you might fall from a PR5 to a PR4. The thing that really matters is your rankings so if they haven't dropped it isn't that big of a deal.

Best of luck!

[Nashvegas]

I have read something very similar. The webmaster who runs SitePro News basically formulated that Google has increases it's PR requirements due to the fact that more websites have appeared in it's index that ever before in a 6 month period of time. A lot of websites actually lost PR and a lot more simply stayed where they were. He also formulated that execellent PR starts at PR5 and anything above that is one tick above excellent. Hope this helps.

[frobn]

My index page went from PR5 to PR4 with this most recent update and I lost on many of my internal pages as well.

During the time since the April update and this one, I have been continuing my linking campaign. But I have not been working on it nearly as hard as I had been earlier in the year. Basically, I have just been swapping with people who find me. I have not spent much time hunting for links.

Is this most likely the reason that I have lost PR?

Also, I had shifted from getting index page links to getting internal ones.

Could this have an effect?

Anyway, my rankings are actually slightly better than when I last checked a couple of weeks ago so I am not too worried. I just wonder if I am going to have to step up my linking efforts again to get back to PR5.

First what others are saying here about SERPs being more important than PR is true, yet PR is an indication of how the SE "Google" views web sites. For several months I have been going against 'conventional' thinking in that I believe Google has shifted focus from the 'link' itself to linking behavior or the process that goes into obtaining the link. Another factor that may or may not play into this is that Google may be morphing, however slowly, from a link-centric SE to a content-centric SE.

Regarding the reference to SitePro, I wrote the following in another forum

Today http://www.sitepronews.com/ has an article "Google PageRank Update Analysis" By Dave Davies. In a paragraph under the heading "What Do I Do - My PageRank Dropped?" Davies states,

Now, if you've noticed that everyone around you has stayed the same or increased in PageRank try to remember this, there's nothing you can do about where you're currently positioned in regards to PageRank and it will probably be another 3 months before Google updates the public PageRank again so ... start building some good quality (high relevancy, solid PageRank) links. Work towards an increase in the next update.

This is at the heart of my disappointment with both Google and many SEOs. Davies who may otherwise be a good SEO appears to be blinded by Google's emphasis on links. Nowhere in the article does he even hint at improving content. From my experience several of my sites that I added content to but not links have gone up in PR, none have gone down and all have improved. Could the drop in rank from sites with many links be because they have little to say? Perhaps there is hope for Google after all.

In the recent upgrade I have one new site http://thebroadwaygroup.com that went to PR5 out-of-the-box and a second relatively new site (4 months old) http://cssdesignmagic.com that went from PR4 to PR5. One is a development site the other a real estate site. Neither site has been optimized for SEs, one thing that I did for both was to add around 30 pages of good content, mostly text. Most of the external links are from forums. I have some assumptions but I would like to hear what others have experienced and what they think may have caused the increase or decrease in PR.

[WeRASkitzzo]

While useful content is good to have and much better for your users, there is not denying that the big three search engines all place significant weight on the number of links pointing to your site in their ranking algo's. PR, while visually appealing, really has nothing to do with the way you rank. Most of the people who have posted in this thread so far have been spot on. You may have done nothing wrong and still lost PR because you didnt progress enough. The days of being able to tread water once you reach a certain point or rank in the SERPs are gone. Your site is now like a plant, you're either growing or your dieing, there is no longer a middle ground.

[frobn]

While useful content is good to have and much better for your users, there is not denying that the big three search engines all place significant weight on the number of links pointing to your site in their ranking algo's. PR, while visually appealing, really has nothing to do with the way you rank. Most of the people who have posted in this thread so far have been spot on. You may have done nothing wrong and still lost PR because you didnt progress enough. The days of being able to tread water once you reach a certain point or rank in the SERPs are gone. Your site is now like a plant, you're either growing or your dieing, there is no longer a middle ground.

Are you saying that you MUST have continual link growing for ALL 3 search engines? If so I would disagree. I have seen no evidence that MSN places ANY value on linking but have seen evidence to the opposite. Yahoo appears undecided and in an identity crisis. I am even seeing indications that Google is less obsessive about linking. Yes, Google places significant value on linking but be careful as their focus has shifted from the link itself to linking behavior.

I admit that except for MSN's content focus most of the above is an 'educated guess' based on my own experiences and observations. I would certainly like to hear others 'educated guesses' based on their own observations and thoughts.

[Breckenridge Real Estate]

Yes, Google places significant value on linking but be careful as their focus has shifted from the link itself to linking behavior.

What do you mean by "linking behavior"?

[Breckenridge Real Estate]

I think I figured out why I lost PR tonight.

I have always avoided exchanging links with sites that would put my link on a page with over 100 links on it.

It seems that over 100 sites that I had exchanged with have since grown the pages with my link on it to over 100 links.

Does anyone here think that I should pull my links to these sites?

[frobn]

I think I figured out why I lost PR tonight.

I have always avoided exchanging links with sites that would put my link on a page with over 100 links on it.

It seems that over 100 sites that I had exchanged with have since grown the pages with my link on it to over 100 links.

Does anyone here think that I should pull my links to these sites?

It is gratifying to see that webmasters are finally examining the consequences of indiscriminate linking. Please don't misinterpret what I am saying, reciprocal linking is not bad, what I am inferring is the way you link, or your "linking behavior," will determine the value of the link whether it is reciprocal or one-way. While it is quite possible that linking to such sites will drag your PR rating into the ground it is also possible that other factors can account for your loss of PR. From my, albeit, limited experience, PR is more likely to be influenced by such things as design architecture, content, navigation, congruence (theme) and internal linking strategies. Whether you believe these sites to be responsible or not you might first visit your linking partners to see if they have been delisted, if they are still indexed in Google you might write them to see if they would be willing to discuss more creative linking strategies such as one-way linking.