My Theory about Massive PageRank Drop!

Alright, after some reading about how PageRank of many many sites is dropped heavily. I have come to some conclusion, it may be wrong but I think its not.

Some people also claiming that Google has changed their PR algorithm, other claiming they manually penalized the link selling websites.

What I think is, after analyzing a lot about link sellers and buyers .. Google figured out general behavior of unnatural links, and they started discounting those links and this is what caused PR for those sites to drop.

As example, I'd put forward StatCounter.com, it dropped from PR10 to PR6 ...

Since, most of the links to StatCounter was not inline, and was from footers, invisible and so .. So, Google's automatic detector may have considered them as unnatural and discounted, leaving its PR to 6, instead of PR10 .. what it used to be.

Another example is: phplinkdirectory.com ... It fell from PR7 to PR7, apply above theory here .. and it fits. Most links are footer links, not inline ... pretty much paid links behavior ..

As we all know, Aviva and Alive purchased hell loads of links .. and of course, most of those links were from sidebars, footers etc. May be all those links were discounted as paid/unnatural links and only PR4 was left for them.

nuff said.

Ok, your thoughts?

 

lol .. i fkd up the poll question .. it should be "What you think about this theory?"

 

If people noticed that links from massive article submissions were not really penalized (assuming they were UNIQUE articles) then this could be correct. Articles would hold a higher value for links since the links appear genuine.

 

The process of 'penalizing' is still on, I guess. When it will be finished, I'm sure it will be officially published on Google's webmasters site or in M.C.'s blog.

If I buy links and Google penalize my site because of that, then I can put links of my competitors in the footer of my site and Google will penalize them...so this theory will probably not gonna work. It is the same question as with "bad neighbourhood" links.

 

No, Google do not penalize. It just does not count those links. So, it cannot harm your competitor's site, if not give any benefit.

 

Can't disagree.

 

Just one point - Statcounter.com it seems was earlier PR9 and not PR10.
It still shows PR9 on some DCs. It has gone from PR9 to PR6, still quite
a fall and quite reasonable.

 

yes, but I was talking about overall fall. Originally it was PR10, and now PR6. If you consider how hard is to rise from PR6 to PR7, then PR7 to PR8 and then PR8 to PR9 .... it must also be tough to drop back. Only one thing seems to happen, discounting of thousands of backlinks.

 

Statcounter seems weird.

10-->9-->8-->8 or 6 (Orange Indicator)-->6 or 9 (Green Indicator)

Pay attention for this.

 

Generally, I think you are right in that G has identified those characteristics that tend to indicate a paid link. Sidebar or footer placement are just two such factors that *may* indicate this.

But, I doubt that G penalized across the board. They would normally just not include those BLs in PR calculations.


/*tom*/

 

Yes... maybe you're right.

But this one... it can't fall from PR7 to PR7.

 

So you are way the heck over at Guantanamo Bay - eh?

Either that or we're way the heck over here

The theory that you proposed, is a theory that I wish Google would figure out, whether it was the reason or not.

But it seems well within thier ability.

 

This is what I was thinking of the drop and makes absolute sense. If google is going for it then PR will be back to what it used to be rather than a tool to bargain.

 

The result of PR droppings of some sites because of the strict implementation of New Google Linking Scheme... That's why...

 

damn .. I meant PR7 to PR6 .. typo

Its a fun place to hangout .. want an invite?

 

How would they see if the site is Buying/Selling links or just putting links of their pages. Like I have about 12 pages, and I have links of all the pages on each of the sites. All my sites either dropped, from 4/3 to 2 or rose from 0 to 2... Now my sites are pretty much all PR 2 except a few pr 0 undeveloped sites.

Never bought links, never sold links...

 

That's exactly it - they can't distinguish between what is paid and what isn't, without manual intervention. They can chase their tail all day long and there is no way to determine algorithmically whether or not a link is paid with 100% accuracy.

It's more likely they are just devaluing mass interlinking in general and/or links located in certain locations on the page.

 

Sucks huh? I thought I was gon get at least like PR 4 on most of my pages this update

My links are on the very bottom of the pages... I think I should move them if thats the case.

 

Definitely worth the experiment - move them and see what happens with the next update.