so what's the current webmaster seo theory on the most recent google "thing"?

So what's going on.... weird pr update - it's been about a week or so and I haven't seen anything revert or change so what is the community thinking about it now? Are we still expecting it to be "fixed"? Are we accepting it - and if so, has anyone come up for a rationale for what happened to the pr? welcoming thoughts from the seo/google/webmaster guru's.

Lisa

 

We're talkin' about chaos right know. Yes, just like the others, I'm waitin' for G's fixin' move at the nearest future - however it's mainly about PR. For last couple days we can see a desertion of the newest results what means G's crew is preparin' itselves for changes.... I guess.

 

The answer is the same as it has been for the last two or three years, NOBODY KNOWS.

There is absolutely no discernable rationale to any of Google's SERPs. For every result you can show me to prove a point I can show you two others that disprove the assumption. A lot of people are still looking for a master plan and logic. But I haven't seen one in years. The kindest thing you can say about their results is that they are totally random.

Nobody can show, prove or attain consistent results. It's a crap shot at best. I have pages that have maintained their top ten ranking forever and I have others that yoyo between top ten and oblivion.

 

I agree with compar... nobody knows. My best speculation is there are two possibilities:

1. G is still working bugs out from the Bigdaddy algo change.
2. G is throwing a curveball to webmasters intentionally to counter link buying.

 

Yea, three of my internal pages just got PR4 and like 40 of my pages (song lyric pages) got Pr2, while my main page and the rest remain at Pr3 and pr0 for the new ones. I guess I'm happy, but more confused.

 

I think PR has been changing at least since the update before 4/4/06, and this is only the latest step. In the update previous to 4/4/06, I saw similar things happening, but not as extreme.

For example, two updates ago one site with tons of links stayed at PR4 index page, with PR5 secondary pages. However, a brand new site went to all PR5 pages with 1/5th the link pop.

This last update though, it was definitely... puzzling.

 

Seems the PR changes have been in place for two weeks now. Apart from my theory on market category page rank I can't think of anything else.

1. Pages are rewarded for inbound links from similar pages
2. Pages are penalised for inbound links from irrelevant pages

 

I disagree at all. Last couple weeks showed me that G doesn't know irrevelant links from revelant. As a matter of fact they never truly did.

 

coming from any of us on this forum, that probably means google's doing a good job

that may be the case NOW, but if you're thinking long term it would be smart to get relevant links. google is 'learning' all the time.

 

It's well within Google's capability to distinguish between relevant, less relevant and totally irrelevant links.

 

Absolutely. They have to go this way, just like Hakia do.

 

Maybe google is practicing a new kind of parenting? Give new sites the beneifit of the doubt and then as they don't live up to expectations, pr will be deducted or if they exceed expectations, added? That would explain high pr for new sites and little movement on older sites.

Lisa

 

i dunno if its just me but the recent pr update has only seem to affect new sites? all my newer sites seemed to gain where as the more established ones did not budge.

 

Internal pages of my older sites moved - new pages on old sites got some pr and some older internal pages lost a little, 5 to 4 or 4 to 3

Lisa

 

Here's a thought -- maybe Google tweaked their algos so that more relevant pages really do appear higher in the SERPS... and guess what, your page(s) aren't as relevent!

 

I'm one of those with a new site (6 weeks old) getting pr6 and ranking top 10 in google for targeted keywords - not complaining - even my 'old' sites maintained their index page pr5 back at ya! lol

 

My theory:

Google has reworked its entire PR algorithm and will be recalculating all PR from scratch.

It has started with new pages first this time.

By next update Google would have reworked PR of all pages.

The new pages are being measured on a new scale and are getting higher toolbar PRs because there are no new pages with high actual PR right now.

By next update , Google would shift all pages to new PR scale and toolbar PRs will become more reasonable.

 

its all about relavancy now, topic sensitive page rank, LSI , LSD and whatever

 

This would be complete stupidity if this is really their intentions. Get rid of the toolbar all together if that's what their trying to achieive.

 

Even though it seems totally counterintuitive, I don't think backlinks are a factor in this PR update. I haven't promoted my site much yet (still building content) so I've got few, if any, backlinks. But suddenly I'm PR 5! Since the update affected a lot of new sites, I'm guessing many of them don't have a large number of backlinks either. So yeah, PR 5, yet Google hasn't indexed my homepage since March.