Why has my page rank dropped?
OK the usual question that gets asked a lot on SEO forums in the few days after a visible PR update is why has my page rank gone down, and thought visible page rank is not the most useful tool in judging the effectiveness of your SEO campaign, I will humour the people who ask the question with an attempt at a useful answer.
There are a number possible answers and i will examine them from the most likely to the least likely.
1. Google has changed the Goalposts Visible page rank is not an absolute measure, but a summary of real page rank simplified into ten bands. These bands are fluid, so it is very possible that the actual page rank of your page has not changed, but as Google moves the banding limits your visible page rank has dropped.
2. That you have lost some links. Websites go off line, pages get re written, pages drop out of Googles index, links get changed and made to no follow all the time. If you have any number of links it is very likely that you will be loosing links on a regular basis. If you are not creating links you will be loosing links.
3. That you links are being devalued. At the moment Google is taking a strong line on purchased links, if they see that sites have been purchasing links or manipulating its page rank algorithm in some other way it is likely that they will drop there page rank or drop out of Googles index all together. This effect on some of the pages pointing to your site will be to reduce your sites page rank.
4. It is a Google penalty on your site for link buying, link selling or other manipulation techniques. If Google thinks you have engaged in these kind of activities, it is possible it will place a penalty on a sites visible (and real) page rank.
As I said the mostly likely reasons are at the top of the list and the rarer reasons are at the bottom of the list. If you merely slip one page rank I would look at reasons 1 and 2, if you drop numbers of page rank give more thought to issues 3 and4.
Is page rank still relevant anyway? Not as any kind of meaningful target for an SEO campaign, but pay some attention to it, sudden drop in visible page rank could often mean you are either suffering from a penalty in Google or receiving links from some sites which are.
Jon Hunter is an SEO Consultant who has been working with the internet for 10 years and has been working as an SEO operative for the past 5.
