Page Rank Drop From 5 to 3

I run a popular website that gets 350,000 page views / month. I've been a Page rank 5 since March of 2006 and when I got back from vacation this month I dropped to a 3.

My Google Webmaster tools tells me that I have over 20,000 incoming links and many of them are from nationally syndicated media outlets. It seems strange to me that a site with so many quality links would drop to a 3.

All of my internal pages are also dropping in Page Rank dramatically. I haven't been doing anything Black Hat and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing similar drops?

 

Check ALL the sites you are linking to. Paid links or otherwise. If one of them was banned from Google or punished someway you might be affected if you are linking to them.

 

Its probably just a glitch

 

Thanks for the quick feedback!

@Joseh7 - we only have 2 external links on the homepage and both of them have been there through multiple Page Rank update. They are reputable sites who also have good Page Rank.

@peepin2me - any way to "fix" the glitch? I filed a re-inclusion request earlier today. Have you seen this happen before?

 

A re-inclusion request? That was not very smart.
Your site isn't banned, it just lost pagerank.

 

@DidierE - I did it because I figured I was either penalized or I was hit in the aftermath of a Page Rank update. Is there another path to take?

 

When we are nearing a toolbar PR update, strange things happen sometimes. In a week or 2 things would get back to normal, usually.

 

Forget about PR for now - has your traffic dropped? That is more worrisome than a PR drop.

 

Yes, big drops. I have in mind that it has a big "to do" with my "no follow" experiment over the last several months.

 

@peepin2me - I really hope so! The toolbar has dropped to a 3 but I've also looked at many other data centers and they are all showing up as 3 as well.

@a389951 - It's been hard to tell what the effect on traffic has been since December is always a slow month since people are away. Many of my advertisers though like the fact that I'm an authority website. It is really bad optics now when they go in and see that I've fallen to a 3.

 

@JoyGoRound - sorry to hear about your drops. Almost all of my links to internal pages are dofollow while the external ones are nofollow. There are a few exceptions, but as I mentioned above, I only have 2 external links from my homepage and they are reputable sites who I've linked to through a number of PR updates.

 

pr 3 is better then nothing submiting to high pr or paid links directory maybe help on the naxt update

 

I took a hit from 4 down to 2 for about 6 months then it came back again.

Never worked out why it dropped or came back & stopped worrying after a few weeks because serps and traffic were unaffected.

a389951l is right ignore PR & keep building your site.

 

A few toolbar exports ago my home page dropped from a PR5 to a PR4. I had lost one PR6 backlink, and I believe that alone was sufficient to cause the drop.

It may be that out of your 20K backlinks you have lost one really high PR link which was primarily responsible for the previous PR5. Just a thought about possible causes.

 

@~WHM~ - do you really think that will make a big difference? I already have over 20,000 good links, many from national media publications, and am listed in directories like Yahoo!'s business directory. Will a couple more links help?

@bwp58 - 6 months is a long time to wait! I only care because my advertisers and partners care. It doesn't impact my search traffic but it's the appearance of being an authority site which helps close a lot of deals.

 

@Jim4767 - thanks Jim - I checked to see that my media publication links were still there and they were. Would a loss of a few links cause a drop of 2 positions?

 

Relying on PR as a business model is a dangerous game to play especially with Google. Your PR may get burned if you get reported as a link seller based on PR - take care.

 

@a389951l - thanks for the feedback! The ad space that I sell are graphical banner and carry nofollow so this should not be the problem

 

I am sorry to here this mate.

my website Page Rank has stayed at PR3 for several months now, I am ok.

I just hope that my site does not drop also.

Have you been adding new content regularly; Also, check out your back link quality.

~ Mike

 

If you have a nofollow tag, then PR should not even be a concern for your advertisers but then again I realize that most think that PR is all that matters. I think you should focus on traffic for your advertisers: unique visitors, bounce rates, returning visitors, etc.

PR as a basis for a business model is not a good way to run a web business. You can but then you face these type of issues.