@ms2134 - Yes, I've been adding content. Over the past 6 months over 10,000 pages have been added to my site (which represents a growth rate of about 25%).
@a389951l - yes, they are not buying Page Rank but they want to feel like they are associated with an industry leader and Page Rank helps establish that. Unfortunately people pay attention to what your PR is even if you don't care. It's not the only way I make money but it's part of it and with this economy I'd prefer not to lose any more! I'm just trying to figure out if anyone has experienced this drop as well recently and if there is anything I can do.
WOW... That is a lot of pages mate... Hmmm... Do you have any website hosting related pages? If so, I can help you out with a Link Exchange... See... http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=10193680 All the best, ~ Mike
I would not over react as I have seen my sites dip and then recover. If may be a glitch so over time your PR may recover. The only way to be sure is increase the marketing for your website to get more links back to your home page. Good luck.
@ms2134 - I have a dedicated server and had issues in the past as I grew my site but haven't had any problems for a year or so now so I don't think it's related @a389951l - Thanks for the advice - I'll continue working away on links. It just comes as a shock as all of my internal pages have taken a hit as well - to drop from a PR 5 to PR 3 with my internal pages also going down to me feels like I got penalized somehow or I got caught up on the wrong side of a PR update
It is going to be hard to tell if you got penalized if you don't list your site. But I understand if don't What are the cache dates for your main pages? Are they recent within 2 weeks? If you type in your site in google, does it show up as the first listing? Just a few things to check as well as if your core keywords are still showing up where you expect them.
I totally agree with the above, you really need to check your backlinks specially the ones with high PR.. if it's still there or not ??!
Done any blog spamming? sold links? got links from bad neighbourhoods? Bought links? linked to bad neighbourhoods? Duplicated content? cloaked site? hidden text?
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! @a389951l - the last Cache date was 29 Dec 2008 23:00:48 GMT so it's very recent. I am still ranking for my important keywords and driving traffic. Overall numbers are down but I attribute this to the holiday season and not to lower position in the SERPs @Jim4767, Webberman, IEmailer.com - as far as I know my incoming links haven't changed but I don't recall getting any link from a PR6 or higher. I've also seen many websites with far fewer quality links get at least a PR 4. @Shellerz - I've tried to be as white hat as possible. I don't blog spam, buy or sell links. No cloaking or hidden text, etc. And I've been away for the past couple of weeks so no changes have been made to the site. I just got back and lost my PR.
I totally agree with the above, you really need to check your backlinks specially the ones with high PR.. if it's still there or not ??!
@jingwen - sorry to hear about the drop - it sounds like we might be having the same problem. What happened with your site?
I got dinged two updates ago. no loss in links or anything. However I did post a paid link on our homepage and I think it was to a site that the G didn't like. So we still get good serps and roughly 100k a month in traffic. just stuck with a pr2...... suxorz but doens't really have any affect on traffic.
Think positively anyway, it might be a glitch and in few weeks you will be back to PR 5. Plus I have to agree with what was said before that you shouldn't get that frustrated if you lose PR. PR has very little affect on your visitors/customers.
John Chow has millions of back links and he is just stuck on pr 3. You should be glad on what your site has achieve because 20,000 back links isn't that many.