26 replies to this topic

[renken]

I wish to have a conversation about Google PageRank. I've read a lot of the opinions here and other places about PageRank. I do not advocate chasing PageRank, but I've had an interesting experience that I need to share and get some feedback on.

I've been working with a site for about the last 8 months. Before I started working on it, it wasn't optimized in any way. It did have some useful content for selling the site's services, however, even the navigation was not up to par. The site is over 5 years old.

I redesigned the entire site. I didn't change a lot of the text, just focused each page more around specific topics and changed the page titles. After this optimizing, I saw no increase in PageRank for 4 months.

Then, I put links into this site from about 30 other web sites (probably about 20,000 web pages all together). After about a month, Google PageRank went from a 5/10 to a 6/10. I'm trying really hard not to assume that what happened next is because of PageRank, but there were really no other substantial changes to the site other than the PageRank. (I do add content to the site on a monthly basis, but that has remained consistent since I started working on the site.)

What happened is that I've been watching a specific keyword. Again, I must qualify that I rarely try to optimize for a very specific word or do I become stuck on a word, and I wasn't trying very hard for this one, but I was keeping my eye on it.

Well, it was like overnight that now we are in the top ten SERP (from over 100 to 7) for this keyword - in fact, now, when I put a word in the title, I get almost instant results (as long as the page reflects the title).

My gut instinct says that it is because of the Link Popularity and PageRank (and I also need to qualify that it is the Toolbar PR and not Real PR because I have no idea how to see what Real PR is.)

However, I keep reading that PageRank is basically useless and I shouldn't concern myself with it.

[Jill]

The links pointing to your site definitely help its rankings.

But you'll notice that pages in the SERPs aren't ordered in toolbar PageRank order.

Good links, from great pages, with good anchor text can make or break an SEO campaign. No doubt about that. But you're mixing that up with toolbar PageRank. We have another thread going on right now on the importance (or lack there of) of PR, which you may want to check out if you haven't already.

[Randy]

A factor to take into account...

How many of those links use all or a significant portion of the keyword phrase you're watching as anchor text?

The anchor text can have a rather drastic effect on rankings, especially in Google, if even one or two good authority sites link to you using the phrase you're shooting for. So it could be related to PR, but still not be all about PR in and of itself.

[renken]

Well that's just the thing, I was never really concerned with anchor text. So none of the new links coming in had anything to do with anchor text. However, after reading some other threads here, just two days ago, I changed the anchor text to all of the links pointing into the site. I'm going to see if that has any kind of affect.

But as for my original observation, anchor text had nothing to do with it.

Where is that other thread on PR? I think I started reading it at one point.

Thanks.

[Michael Martinez]

I redesigned the entire site.  I didn't  change a lot of the text, just focused each page more around specific topics and changed the page titles.  After this optimizing, I saw no increase in PageRank for 4 months.

PageRank doesn't measure structure of a site, but rather how "important" the site is deemed to be. Also, Google bnly releases new PageRank data about once every 3 months.

What happened is that I've been watching a specific keyword.  Again, I must qualify that I rarely try to optimize for a very specific word or do I become stuck on a word, and I wasn't trying very hard for this one, but I was keeping my eye on it.

Well, it was like overnight that now we are in the top ten SERP (from over 100 to 7) for this keyword - in fact, now, when I put a word in the title, I get almost instant results (as long as the page reflects the title).

You've changed the organization, added content, and gotten links from 30 Web sites (with 20,000+ pages -- does that mean you got 20,000+ links?).

You don't tell us how competitive the keywords you are watching may be, or whether other sites have changed their contents, lost links, gained links, or whether new sites have been added to the mix or dropped.

My gut instinct says that it is because of the Link Popularity and PageRank (and I also need to qualify that it is the Toolbar PR and not Real PR because I have no idea how to see what Real PR is.)

However, I keep reading that PageRank is basically useless and I shouldn't concern myself with it.

Look at what Google has to say about its search results rankings:

http://www.google.co...orate/tech.html

The software behind Google's search technology conducts a series of simultaneous calculations requiring only a fraction of a second. Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. Google uses PageRank™ to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. It then conducts hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, Google is able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.

Emphasis is mine.

The Toolbar 6/10 value you've gained doesn't tell you anything about why your page increased in relevance and/or importance for the one keyword expression. If PageRank were the significant factor, you should see increases in rankings for other search expressions (I have watched many domains, as they acquire links, rise in search results for numerous expressions).

If you did not request/set a single anchor text expression for the links from the other domains, then you got natural linkage which should set your site's relevance for various expressions that it may previously not have been deemed relevant for.

In short, you are working with too little information to be able to analyze what happened. The PageRank increase may have been in the pipeline before you started your linking campaign. The changes you made to the site may have produced a higher relevance score. The keywords you are looking at may or may not be the only keywords where the site's rankings have changed.

[RyanBlank]

in fact, now, when I put a word in the title, I get almost instant results (as long as the page reflects the title)

This is the case on many sites i work on with page rank lower than 6... much lower actually. PR 6 means a ton of links, which most normal sites do not have.

[renken]

Michael says: "You've changed the organization, added content, and gotten links from 30 Web sites (with 20,000+ pages -- does that mean you got 20,000+ links?).

You don't tell us how competitive the keywords you are watching may be, or whether other sites have changed their contents, lost links, gained links, or whether new sites have been added to the mix or dropped."

Yes, it means 20,000 + links (I put the link in the footer of each site, they are dynamically generated pages.)

I'm not sure how competitive the phrase is. It goes for about $1.00 for the top position on Yahoo, and we pay 1.30 for 5th position in Google. Probably not very competitive.

We still have the same competitors, nothing has changed in that arena. Our top competitor hasn't changed anything (that I can tell), and they are still number 1.

But I see what you're saying. Possibly there are too many other variables in the mix to really tell if the thing that did it was the PR.

But, also, we just moved up to number 5 - 5 days after I changed those 20,000 links so that the anchor text is now the keyword. Seems like we should be number 1 if Anchor text was that important! But maybe Google hasn't found all those other pages yet, either.

Well, I understand a little better now, there are just too many variables to say if it's the PR. I was too quick to think it was PR because that was what I was focusing on.

But, I'll still take the PR 6!

[Jill]

Well, I understand a little better now, there are just too many variables to say if it's the PR. I was too quick to think it was PR because that was what I was focusing on.

It's not the PR, it's the anchor text, just like you said.

[Michael Martinez]

Yes, it means 20,000 + links (I put the link in the footer of each site, they are dynamically generated pages.)

20,000 links is a significant factor. However, be advised that many people believe Google is looking out for sudden massive inbound linkage. It will be interesting to see if your site vanishes from the index completely.

I'm not sure how competitive the phrase is.  It goes for about $1.00 for the top position on Yahoo, and we pay 1.30 for 5th position in Google.  Probably not very competitive.

I was not referring to pay-per-click competition.

But I see what you're saying.  Possibly there are too many other variables in the mix to really tell if the thing that did it was the PR.

Well, in this case, based on your clarification, I an inclined to agree with Jill (assuming the 20,000 links or a substantial portion of them were indexed).

But, also, we just moved up to number 5 - 5 days after I changed those 20,000 links so that the anchor text is now the keyword.  Seems like we should be number 1 if Anchor text was that important!  But maybe Google hasn't found all those other pages yet, either.

With such a massive number of links, 5 days is awfully quick even for Google. Are you absolutely sure the 20,000 pages were all fetched by GoogleBot after you changed the link?

Ignore the PR 6. It's meaningless. You may be doing well from now on (internal backlinks are usually a good thing). Some people would caution you to expect possible disaster (too many links too quickly).

Monitor the site's listings carefully and stop worrying about PageRank. It's not the PageRank that matters, it's the relevance (which you asserted through both on-page and off-page factors).

You won't know for several more months (usually) how your Toolbar PageRank fares, and then you'll only get a brief snapshot of one moment in time.

[Randy]

I would personally be concerned about putting all of your eggs in one basket with the 30 sites => 20,000 links portion of it.

If I were a search engine, something like that would definitely get my attention! And not necessarily in a positive manner.

[renken]

Randy says: "If I were a search engine, something like that would definitely get my attention! And not necessarily in a positive manner."

I didn't think of that!

But, let me be a little clearer. I think by some of your responses that I wasn't clear. I know I made it sound like I added all the links in one day, but that wasn't exactly what happened. We built 30 sites over the course of 4-5 months. We're still building them and adding relevant content. When we hit our PR of 6/10 we had about 20,000 links into the site from those that we're building. I'm estimating. Google does not see all those links. Google says the site has 129 backlinks.

With all my tinkering, traffic has not increased or decreased. So the PR 6 is meaningless on that front.

[Jill]

So you're saying that most of your links are all from your own network of sites?

[Michael Martinez]

...When we hit our PR of 6/10 we had about 20,000 links into the site from those that we're building.  I'm estimating.  Google does not see all those links.  Google says the site has 129 backlinks.

You cannot do a link search on Google. They deliberately broke it, and it only reports a random sampling.

Do a search on your URL like this:

"www.my.domain/"

That will show you all (or nearly all) of their indexed on-page references (it may include non-link data, so some people automatically back off 10-20% from the reported number).

With all my tinkering, traffic has not increased or decreased.  So the PR 6 is meaningless on that front.

For most sites, it's all about the conversions, and if you haven't deprecated your traffic or conversions, you're okay for now. But you want to get an idea of how many of those links Google has found and you want to follow your Google referral traffic to see whether it goes up, goes down, or stays about the same.

[chompy]

the 20,000 links from within your own network (meaning the sites you have also built) MAY have increased your pagerank and your rankings but it doesn't necessarily mean that your traffic and conversions have increased. In my opinion, getting links from other related and relevant sites have dual purpose, one, increase your link popularity, and two, (which i think is more important) is to generate more traffic to your site from theirs.

I have recently read Scottie's article on misreading cause and effect and I would like to share it with you too.

[renken]

Yes, Jill, all the links that I added were from the network of sites that we own. But previously, we had many links into our site from other sites, so before I added those links from our own network, we were at a 5/10 PR, after I added the network links over a couple months, we went to a PR 6/10. We continue to add links into the corp site everyday because we are continually adding content every day. (I'll let you know how many more links it takes to get to 7/10 - LOL!)

Michael, yes, I agree about conversions.

I'm not sure what you mean about typing www.mydomain.com into google search. When I do that, I only get the home page. The only other thing I see there, is the sites that link to my site and that gives me 129 sites. I will definitely look into my referral traffic from Google only, that's a good idea.

Chompy, thanks for that article! Great article! Yes, I did need to read that as a reminder! I try not to think every change I make has an effect, but sometimes I get wrapped up in my own importance - LOL!

I just laughed so hard when I read this line, that I had to reprint it here:
"Instead of coming to the conclusion that the change didn't cause the ranking issue, they instead believe they've angered the search engine gods and head to the forums to find out how to beg forgiveness."

But all that aside, here's one that really works... stand up, jump on one foot three times and yell, "Google Google Google."