Keyword ranking tool/ updates & PR

Hi there everyone

i am new to this forum - but have been using DP's excellent keyword ranking tool for almost 2 months now.

for these two months i have been waiting for my site to get a PR assigned -
i felt sure it would happen in in the last update - it didn't and was sure it would happen in this update - so far i can't see that it has

however- just now- when i checked all my keywords and backlinks (last checked on 20th June) my backlinks sprang from virutally none (1) to a few (11) and the displayed "PR" (on DP Backlink tracker) went from 0 to 4 - is this supposed to be the PR of my site? because when i checked with the google toolbar - i was still a white bar ? -
why should this be - or will my PR appear on the bar soon? - if so how did DP find out the PR before google displayed it? or am i missing something here?

any answers etc greatly appreciated - thank you!

 

when you send in a request to google to get the PR, it doesn't always go to the same server (or datacenter). what you get one time won't always be in sync with what you get the next time.

I'm guessing you'll be a PR4 eventually, when the other servers update.

 

Hoorah!!

i hope so

waiting for my PR has seemed like waiting for a christmas thats keeps getting postponed!!

i know you say your only guessing - but you couldn't put a rough figure on "eventually" could you?

p.s thanks for your response !

 

http://www.webmasterbrain.com/upcoming-pagerank-value-checking-tool--tool11.htm

you may want to try that, it may already be showing on some datacenters

 

Yoinks

thanks for that link i shall use it in the future

i just checked my site again and i have a PR of 4 !!

- i would have thought some of my rankings would have gone up though....

o well.

 

google usually sees the pr "internally" before it's displayed to the public.

you'll see the benefit in the rankings before you see an actual increase in PR; this is why people say that PR updates are mostly just eyecandy.

 

That and the backlinks. Shawns tool uses the API which I have to assume may use different DC's at time.
In a nutshell:
Ususally days before the "eyecandy" is made public you will notice larger than normal movements of your pages and I always use some competitors or associated sites. This sort of indicates that the latest G computations are fed through the system and eventually all DC's have it and the latest pr and backlinks get sort of switched on.

M

 

You may find thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1340 is very useful. I gave there stats which reveals some information on G updates

 

so - any benefits that i would recieve from having a PR of 4 as opposed to a PR of 0 have already taken place?

i'm sure alot of my keywords recently went down in the rankings (over the last couple of days)... i'm confused now

 

You don't benefit from having PR4.

The PR is not the means to a result. It is a result of your linking efforts.

Similarly your SERP's for a key phrase won't go up because it's now PR4. It might go up because there were more links to that page with the particular anchor text in the link which on its turns results in both higher PR and higher SERP's.

You have to see the cause and effect in the correct way, and how PR relates to it.

 

.. well, if you want to get really technical, the PR may be entered directly into the algo (and probably is to some extent), but this doesn't only mean the "visible PR" is used to calculate it. the internal PR (which is more precise, and more frequently updated than the public PR) has the effect.

the public PR changing to a PR4 will have no benefit on the serps for you. whatever benefit it would've given you, you would've been seeing for at least a week or so.

 

now im really confused - i think i need ot go away and re-read all the stuff i've read on PR etc - i was under the impression that the PR was part of the equation that was used to calculate a sites position in Googles SERPs (and a large part of the equation too)

dang - looks like i've got things a little (or a lot) mixed up.

so effectively the only thing that will counts towards good rankings that is related to PR is the anchor text of the links - (and the amount of links)

why do people get so excited by links from high PR pages then? -

 

Because they are PaRanoid...

You want people to find your site on specific phrases so you can sell your products, services or believes or whatever your offering is. You don't want them to come and see your shiny PR9 do you?

From the 1500 products on around 1000 pages we sell, only 10 have PR4 or higher. Still we have at least a hundred #1 phrases and a mighty profitable bussiness. Do I care that the page of a product which sells with 50% margin only has PR1? NO! As long as people can find it, and buy it!

If it is a competitive key phrase, then yes it requires more links with the right anchor text so yes eventually the PR will be higher but AS A RESULT of getting backlinks. Not the other way around. And yes the SERPs will increase for that phrase but NOT because of the higher PR.

PR is just there but it doesn't matter unless you are a text link broker selling to PaRanoid webmasters .

 

PR isn't "just there" - the little green bar is 'just there'. PR is the system used to measure the usefulness of the site. Obviously a PR1 on a product page geared towards a specific low profile product will yield good results, but take your PR1 against "Sony Vaio" and see where you end up..

 

Now how do you link that PR with the keyphrase. What do you mean with 'Take your PR1 against 'Sony Vaio''...

PR and anchor text don't relate as far as I'm aware so to me that sentence sounds random.

 

Correct PR is topic insensitive. But what schlottke meant was if you want to compete with Sony you will have to have a higher PR. I still think he has it backwards.

You will have to have more backlinks and anchor text. The result will be that you will have more PR. But as you said above TOPS30. SERP placement and PR are both the result of the number of backlinks. The SERP placement is the result of the anchor text or relvance of the links and the PR is a result of the number and PR value of the linking pages.

So there is often a rough corrrelation between PR and SERP placement, but there isn't any cause and effect relationship. PR is just a number. Google is looking for relevant pages to place in their SERPs. You can't tell relevancy from a mathematical sharing of PR values. You tell relevancy from the words used in the anchor text.

 

Thanks for saying it in probably a clearer way than I did. That's exactly what I try to convince Fluke of, that PR is a result, not an ingredient on its own to higher SERPs. And yes mostly if one occurs, then the other follows foot but no direct link/relationship.

I thought that was what Schlottke meant but I hoped not. Like I explained in my previous post, I do realize that for something competitive as Sony Vaio, you need tons more links with the side effect of getting higher PR. But like you say it, it is backwards to think you need a higher PR. You need more links with the right anchor text.

Fluke was confused, I hope he understands it now. He will be one of the few...

 

that being said, there are other benefits from having a high PR.

1) google crawls deeper- if your home page is a PR8, it's going to go far, far deeper than it would if your main page was a PR3 or PR4.
2) they'll refresh the pages and crawl for new ones more often

then there are two more indirect, but possibly useful effects...

3) link exchange oppurtunities with larger sites
4) selling text link oppurtunities (just make sure not to advertise the fact that you even know the state of your PR )

 

Ok. I agree with point 2. They will visit and crawl more often. But I think you only need one or two links from reasonable high PR sites -- like PR6 to have them crawl often.

I've never seen any real evidence of point 1. Can you show me sites that have been around for a month or more who haven't had all their pages crawled due solely to low PR? I think this may be another cause and effect issue.

Maybe their navigation sucks and Google can't find all the pages and because of this their PR remains low. Remember Google weighs internal pages highly in determining PR. It isn't all backlinks. I can show you PR5 and 6 pages that have no external links.

Now Item 3 and 4 are correct, but they are only correct due to the continued misunderstanding of the function and value of PageRank.

 

One question regarding keyword ranking: one of my most competitive KWs ranked about #40 in the Keyword Tracker for a long time, but moved forward to #8...10 about 10 days ago in Google.at due to improvements within the site and due to additional backlinks .

Still, looking at Google.at myself, I still find the entry around #40 . When will the actual position really move forward?