Normally I use the page rank prediction tool from iWebTool, and it's been accurate maybe all but once for my sites. However, my business blog - www.BizAmmo.com - is a somewhat odd situation. It's currently PR6, and predicted at PR4. I don't believe that's right for a second, b/c I haven't lost any significant links, and actually gained a few decent ones. However, it picks up some of its PR from older subdomains now being redirected to it, which doesn't seem to be accounted for with the tool. (This used to be a small network of sites on different subdomains that were treated separately, and were combined this spring onto the main domain, with the old ones being redirected.) The page rank prediction tool even still picks up the old subdomains as separate sites still for their own predictions. Most of those are predicted to drop from PR5 to PR4, which I'd kind of expect. (I'm assuming that won't affect the main site on this update, as they'll still be PR5s when the new PRs are calculated... is that right?... I'm also expecting several of my other relevant PR4 sites linking to it to increase to PR5 in this update, which will more than make up for those drops in the future). Is there any way to even begin to guess the PR changes by looking at the backlinks to each of the subdomains pointing to the main one? Yeah, I know PR doesn't mean much to some, but when you switch to a private ad model, it certainly helps to be prepared for any fluctuations. I'm not really overly paranoid about it, because like I said, I know I didn't lose any significant links or anything, but I like to be able to plan for as much as possible. Thanks! Jenn
those Pagerank Predictor tools are not accurate. I guess its just a coincidence that they have been accurate for you. Never works for me...
So far I've only had the one end up wrong, and that was likely my own fault, b/c I changed some forum sig links to one site in a few places without thinking first, so I lost a lot at once to that one site.
I have had better luck with a dart board with the numbers 0 through 10 on it for predicting PR. Prediction tools are interesting but I have not done well with them.
I had some pretty bad memories with the pagerank prediction from iwebtool, since it said from PR2, predicted PR4, and I got so excited and well, still PR2. Dreambreaker!
What I'm actually asking here is whether or not there's any kind of non-automatic method for considering all of the backlinks collectively, to make some kind of educated guess.
I never trust any seo prediction. Its all upon search engines baby, nobody can predict anything in search engine marketing. just make ethical things, and you will definetly get good results in search engines especially in Google. Best of Luck.
I do make ethical things, and you're right... it's paid off in pagerank and such with Google. I'll just not worry about it and take a wait and see approach. Now here's another question: I know when you first redirect one domain to another, it can take a while before that PR translates into a higher PR for the primary domain. When there's a PR update then, do you go through that same waiting process for it to fully update (as in the update is just based on links incoming directly to the main domain, and then it re-transfers PR from anything pointing to it, or b/c Google can acknowledge a permanent redirect is it all going to take place at or around the same time)? Perhaps that's actually my more important concern.