I'm reading through this forum and I noticed that the more I read the more confused I get. Some say that the internal PR is constantly updated and that the PR update is just a visual toolbar update. Then you have people saying that during the update their website is jumping positions. One moment their on page 1, the next moment they are on page 5. This makes me think that maybe it's not just a visual toolbar update because why in the world will so many things be happening coincidentally during the toolbar "visual" update. I noticed that Matt Cutts most of the time gives you incomplete information and leaves people in the air, so I'm not only blaming what I have read in this forum. Is the PR update also an algorithm update which ranks all websites and places them in the positions that they should be? The reason that I ask is because people say that is visual but they don't stop talking about how their website is jumping positions and mentioning that their website is suddenly not appearing in the results and all sorts of things. I'm not making any conclusions I'm only going by some of the stuff that I read in this forum. Sometimes I get the feeling that nobody really knows what they are talking about because you when you ask a question you get 20 different contradicting answers and everyone that gives you a different answer claims to be some type of expert.
This constantly means every week or two. Google doesn't have recourses to update pr of every page on daily basis. You're right and this also includes me as well as the chief Goolite doorman - Matt Cutts
i love how people get so worked up about PR when it means absolutely nothing. And the crazy thing is no one will ever understand that.
Regarding the OP, I feel exactly the same, the more I read, the more confused I become. I do understand that pr has means nothing in respect to serp, (I think LOL) but I still can't help falling victim to the waiting game. It's just like being given a gold star from your primary school teacher - what a great feeling it was, to receive that hard-earned gold star. Especially when you'd struggled so hard to keep up in class Google is constantly moving the goal-posts (especially as of late) to get a rise in pr is just like getting a pat on the back & a little assurance that you're going in the right direction. I've reached a stage where I feel as though google are making us all jump through hoops for a laugh They seem to have forgotten that their business relies on webmaster's business & they're, to all intents & purposes, going out of their way to keep us all guessing. It's a bastard shitty way to run a company that relies on a symbiotic relationship with webmasters ... especially as they're the main culprit that encourage the millions of useless websites that exist solely for advertising revenue. Wouldn't it be something, if we could turn the tables 100 gold stars for the next person to figure that one out
Pr has everything to do with serps. I run a pr7 site and I can't believe the amount of keywords that can actually retrieve my pages. Of course serps are not based purely on pr alone, but pr is a commodity that Google has been promoting since its inception, and it has a big impact on serps.
LOL who am I to argue If someone could explain in plain English why it does or why it doesn't ... I'd be a little bit less confused It does seem, round here, that many knowledgeable seo's think otherwise ... sigh
Some of us have good ideas about what is going on behind the scenes but nobody knows for sure. It's just a game. Some of us believe in old wives tales. Some of us worry too much about what goes on there without focusing on what we have control of. But hey, it's a public forum ... what do you expect.
Nobody can say they know for certain. If that was the case and they were certain they'd be freakin millionaires. But then, Google would just go ahead and change their algorithms.
@Eskarina you have to understand what pagerank really is or what Google wants it to be. It's a measure of importance, some number attached to each page indicating how valuable Google considers the page to be. Google may be wrong, but it sets the rules. How important is the Pr factor in the algo? I think I just answered this question. Remember that you can promote your site building up incoming links. This will affect the serps but when high pr pages start doing that, low pr's don't stand a chance. Plain English is not gonna help here, even skillful French will never fully satisfy you either By the way, those knowledgeable seo's know as much as you and I.
hmmmm, thanks for that As you've got real experience with what pr does do, regards serps, I guess you must have fairly good insight into the workings of it all I'll take your word for it - nice one
Thanx Eskarina. You overestimated my knowledge and skills but it was nice of you. I like the daisy on your site (though am not particularly fond of acnes)
i totally agree with this. in fact, google is a big secret. nobody can know what google is exactly doing. people on this forum is only sharing their experience about google and seo.
as much as I love this place, communities like this have overblown PR to godly proportions. It's because of PR that directories and other sites have the bragging rites to charge so much for the stuff they do.
Pr is only one tiny factor affecting your SERP. I think what you said is true, the toolbar PR is just a visual representation. It does not really show the consistent changes of your sites. A PR of 3 can either be 3.4 or 2.7, the two sites can differ significantly, but by just looking at PR, we'd think it is the same.
i think changes and ranking inconsistence is way of G to give way other sites or new sites on top (who are also deserve and i think rotation takes place). If a site get on top, he will be glad, if he drops he strive to get back.