Not all that great either, it showed errors as it missed results that were in the index. Compare the tool with others and you will find out.
I for one am showing a decrease in PR as well as a decrease in BLs. Nothing surprising there. Yes, that is the assumption. But, isn't it clear by now that Google doesn't SHOW all the links to your page? From my own observations, the only real reason we have lost PR is not due a decrease in BLs, but due to a decrease in our backlinks' PR value. It seems almost all high-ranking pages linking to us have dropped somewhat.
im split on this update my home page went from a pr 4 to a 3 but all my other pages got pr and some with a 4 more than my home page google upsets me msn & yahoo both backlinks 1500+ google less than 200 errr..
thanks for those tools - very useful. However I'm bloody confused. My back links have gone up on all my sites and PR is now at least 6 on most of my sites - but SERPs disappeared a week before traffic for most keywords (I was top 10 for heaps of them) and as a result traffic went to a third of normal levels. This is the case for 10 or so sites on a variety of topics. I could understand it if they were all on the same topic and there was an increase of other quality sites taking over my SERPs - but this is just plain bizarre. Any thoughts?
daboss, No, the update has not reversed. It just has not spread to all of the datacenters yet. If you would like to view the updated PR values on your Google Toolbar you can do so by pointing the Toolbar to one of the updated datacenters. To do that... > - Go to Windows Explorer on your Computer. > - Go to C:\WINDOWS and look for a file named HOSTS (no extension - Not Host.SAM) > - Right mouse click on the file and select Open with - select Notepad > - Add this line of code - 216.239.53.99 toolbarqueries.google.com -- if toolbarqueries.google.com is already present just modify the IP address to -- 216.239.53.99 (or you can use any of the 19 IP addresses of the datacenters that -- have already updated) > - Save and close the file. > - Now close Internet Explorer and re-open it! Your Google Toolbar will now query the Google Datacenter 216.239.53.99 which is one of the Datacenters already updated. Caryl
Thanks for that tip Caryl. Added it to the file and it worked great. Now I get to see my PR4 instead of 3. Not that it means that much but psychologically it helps.
yeah, thanks caryl... didn't know that it's possible to point to different datacenters. guess i learnt something new today
I have one exception to the observation. My site (first in sig) increased in both PR and BLs. The December 31 update showed an increase from 131 to 140 (about + 7%) and a PR increase from 4 to 5. The observation might still hold true if modified from 'all sites with an increase in BLs' to 'all sites with an increase in BLs of more than 7%' lost PR. If something close to that statement is true, it might support the 'too much - too quick' theory.
I'm beginning to think that all this has something to do with TYPE of backlink rather than just number.
I wasn't espousing a theory or even suggesting that this was universally true. It was simply an observation of the update as it appeared to be happening to the half dozen sites of my own that I checked. In fact I have subsequently checked additional sites and seen exceptions to this earlier observation. It just seemed strange to me that the backlinks should go up significantly and the PR should go down. That is all I reported as an item of passing interest.
Well they managed to drop about 1/2 by BL's and my PR went up by 1. Wonder if PR would have gone up 2 if they'd kept all the BL's? Hummmmmm.
Lowrider, see my previous post: in order to have PR go up 2 points, you would have to drop 3/4 of reported BLs...
WOW...Then if I can get them to drop them all I might go up 3 or 4 points! Seriously, before they dropped over 1/2 the reported links it was at least nice for awhile to have Google and Yahoo reporting similar numbers of links, even though we all know that the information from Google is pretty much worthless. PS: I'm Gonna Be Rich !!! Just for fun checked my future PR in RustyBricks tool and it told me I'm gonna be a PR9
LOL...I know it's for fun but what is strange is that a month or so ago it told me I would be a PR4 and I am now. So you never can tell. God I wish it was right.
Well, see what you started on an 'item of passing interest'? Your personal PR around here must be a slam-dunk 10 Ah yes. We know that many sites with PR 8 and higher took a hit and since PR rolls downhill it would stand to reason that other sites would lose PR as well. But, I don't feel that this alone is enough to result in the PR reductions we are seeing. It could over time, but this is too big, too soon in my view. So that leads us as you say, to the *TYPE* of links. What types might be in play? Expert/Authority links? It’s possible but not very likely in opinion. More likely is *relevant* links (as stated in another thread). I think it is fair to say that Google has invested heavily in relevancy determination techniques. Google claims 'relevant search' as a core competency. And, AdSense is proof that Google can get relevancy correct (most of the time). Now many claim that content is king. I think that is a misstatement. I think relevancy is king, and has been for a long time. It’s just that it is very difficult to obtain relevancy without content. And so, the behavior has been thought to be content driven when, in fact (I believe) it is relevancy driven. That said, what we may be witnessing is a move from all inks counting toward PR, to only relevant links counting. I don’t think we have any reason to believe that the original PR formula has been abandoned, and if it were changed so much that it were no longer recognizable, why continue to pay for the right to use it? The formula could remain in tact, but by only changing the definition of a link, the resulting PR value would liekly change dramatically. If this is true, then ‘natural’ links are probably valuable. On-topic blog links are probably valuable. Links from a relevant category in a quality directory are probably valuable. And forum sigs, FFAs, and link schemes are probably worthless. I think most of us have seen this to be true for some time now. My speculation is that PR is now calculated based on relevant links only. That theory seems to fit today’s landscape quite well.