Alexa has improved a lot than what it was before in ranking sites. Before Alexa used to rank websites just based on alexa toolbar users. Now the criteria for ranking has changed they have tie up with other ranking companies and they use their own toolbar data with other company data to decide the final rankings. Still I feel alexa rankings are skewed and influenced more by toolbar related factors.

Well here the question whether Alexa sees sub domain as a separate entity to rank it? In most cases no alexa rarely sees separate sub domains as a different entity. I have seen BlogSpot domains having Alexa rank of 500. The 500 is not for BlogSpot sub domain but the usage of blogspot.com itself.

A word from the official Alexa blog:

Alexa's traffic rankings are for top level domains only (e.g. domain.com). We do not provide separate rankings for subpages within a domain (e.g. domain.com/subpage.html) or sub domains (e.g. subdomain.domain.com) unless we are able to automatically identify them as personal home pages or blogs, like those hosted on Geocities and Tripod. If a site is identified as a personal home page or blog, its traffic ranking will have an asterisk (*) next to it: Personal Page Avg. Traffic Rank: 3,456*. Personal pages are ranked on the same scale as a regular domain, so a personal page ranked 3,456* is the 3,456th most popular page among Alexa users.

So they don’t separate if the don't identify them automatically. They have such a dumb automated algorithm and it never detects proper sub domains. I feel Alexa need to improve their algorithm on working with sub domains because sub domains are actually different websites.

Labels: pagerank

Google ranks pages not sites we know that but the real question does Google rank a page based on keyword relevance on that page or keyword relevance throughout the website? Based on my, admittedly very targeted, sites I have to say Google is now sophisticated enough to analyze whole site for relevance than just the ranking page. Pages, yes, words are analyzed and targeted. But Google also seems to understand a sites "keywords" and rewards with better SERPS when those are entered.

I look at it like this. I have a site about widgets, 1,000 pages primarily aimed at widgets. Each page is about a particular aspect of widgets, green ones, round ones, making widgets, etc. A couple of my pages on that site are about an apparently disconnected subject, e.g. plankton. The reason that a couple of plankton pages are there is because they are the source of the material which is used to make widgets.

I have loads of these "disconnected" pages, all written well and in the same style as the base widget pages. But they don't rank for plankton. My guess is that Google can't connect plankton and widgets and therefore the plankton pages are considered as less value.

Labels: pagerank

We have seen this across some major sites. If your site is doing very well and if its starts appearing for some rare competitive keywords I am sure your site will be subject to manual review by search engine specialists.

Search engines are very careful about the quality of their SERPs. We know from some internal knowledge that Google uses people to manually review their search engine results. Main flag areas are if a search engine detects big boost in backlinks from high pagerank websites then you can be sure to raise a red flag. A manual review is not always bad but again it depends on the reviewer. A reviewer sees in Google point of view and they are pretty strict on their guidelines even a site going little bit out of bound might raise questions in reviewers mind. We should be careful especially gaining lot of backlinks in short time since Google is always watching us.

Labels: pagerank

Pagerank is just a value assigned based on pagerank of other pages linking to it. Crawling rate for a site depends on various other factors and its definitely not pagerank alone. Martin Buster of webmasterworld gives a good explanation of the myths behind pagerank and crawling.

“I can't be more emphatic about the falseness of this emphasis on PageRank 4. It has to die. If you are going to get ahead you must walk away from this myth. It's a number that was arrived at in relation to backlink searches many years ago. The situation that gave rise to the myth went away, it ended, but the myth endured. I'll explain.

History lesson
Many years ago Google used to show the backlinks of sites with a PR of 4 or more. This caused webmasters to make the erroneous assumption that PR 4 is the threshold between a good ranking and a bad ranking, that Google did not count links from -PR4 sites. Otherwise, why didn't they show them in the backlink searches? It could be said to have been a reasonable assumption but at the time the Googlers were saying this wasn't the case.

To the webmasters, because Google didn't show links from sites with less than PR 4, they assumed that -PR4 meant you were crawled less, had less authority, etc. Over PR 4 meant your site had finally arrived.

Then during a London Pubcon DaveN suggested to Matt Cutts that this scheme was inaccurate and Matt Cutts agreed. Not long after he arrived back at the Googleplex their search engine began showing a sample of backlinks across a range of PR.

Stop and examine the facts

Anyone who has ever ranked a site with an under PR 4 site knows that the assumption that -PR 4 is less worthy is an assumption without foundation. Anyone who has watched their rankings jump with - PR4 backlinks understands that the PR 4 threshold is absolutely false.

The superstition continues

So even though Google began showing PR 4 backlinks, to this very day many webmasters still cling to the mistaken notion that PR 4 is a significant threshold. It is not. This belief in the superiority or meaningfulness of PageRank 4 meets the definition of superstition: "A belief in something not justified by reason or evidence." It's a myth. The healing powers of PR 4 is a superstition.

So what determines crawling?

What determines crawling is the amount of links you have. Each link is a new door, so to speak, for a bot to find you. One can have thousands and thousands of links and still rank under 4, yet be better and deeper crawled than a PR 4 with less inbound links."

Labels: pagerank

Site ranking was quite consistent for sometime. But today they are minus across the board. What are the potential causes? Is this a manual or automated?

Most of the ranking drop are first manual and then move to an automated system. The most common cause for across the board ranking drop linking that seems manipulative or involves "bad neighborhood". Undetected servers are culprit these days which hack the cloaks for Googlebot.

Use of Iframe sometime triggers a penalty but that is Google's head ache because there is no such restriction of using Iframe unless the frame is legitimate. These ideas that I have listed are just the possibilities that could happen. If your site rank drops wait for few days before taking action. It may be Google bug which might get clear on its own. But try to a lot sometime to scrutinize your site for technical issues, undetected hacks and so on.

If you're ranking don't come back quickly then send a reconsideration request. In that case it is always good to have a few things to say about clean-up efforts you have made.

Labels: pagerank

From the day we started monitoring pagerank 10 sites 4 years ago this is the first time we have only 2 sites / pages with PageRank 10. This comes to a big surprise since w3.org , adobe.com have always remained Pagerank 10 years together. This is an indication that Google has made significant changes to their PageRank algorithm.

http://www.searchenginegenie.com/pagerank-10-sites.htm

Only 2 sites to retain their Pagerank 10 is Google.com and USA.gov. Please check the above URL for sites which has pagerank 10 and the ones that lost their PageRank in latest PR Update.

Google Search
10
649,000
287,461,306
http://www.google.com
US Goverment website
10
14,200
7,013,414
http://www.usa.gov/

We were expecting PR 6 but never got it. Hope we get it next time Pagerank is a good measure of the quality of the site and its healthy backlinks.

Labels: pagerank, pagerank update

Google's Mattcutts was the first one to announce a pagerank update which is in progress. Pagerank is right now visible in most of the places.

A simple cartoon showing matt cutts announcing pagerank update July 2008.
http://www.searchenginegenie.com/google-page-rank-update-comic.htm

Labels: pagerank, pagerank update

We are currently witnessing the July 2008 Pagerank update. Pagerank updates happen once in 3 months and the current Google page rank update is in progress. Last pagerank update was around April 28 2008 so its exactly 3 months and we have the 2nd quarter update.

You can check your pagerank using our pagerank checker tool we have set it up to query the updated datacenter:

http://www.searchenginegenie.com/search-engine-page-rank-checking.php

Current updated datacenter is :

July 2008 current Pagerank Updated datacenter 209.85.173.147

I hope you have new pagerank for your sites. :-) enjoy our free tools and don't forget to link to it.

Vijay

Labels: pagerank, pagerank update

Already we have one of the best list of Free SEO tools in market. http://www.searchenginegenie.com/seo-tools.htm . Now we are working on a new tool which will give predict the pagerank of a website based on their current pagerank plus user input values. Currently we don't have any real pagerank prediction tools in Internet. All the tools now either check various datacenters and display's the Pagerank or give some random values. But our tool will use partially use the Original Pagerank formula. Our programmers are doing their best to get user values and current pagerank to predict new pagerank.

Original pagerank formula:

:$PR(A)=\; 1\; -\; d\; +\; d\; \backslash left(\; \backslash frac\{PR(B)\}\{L(B)\}+\; \backslash frac\{PR(C)\}\{L(C)\}+\; \backslash frac\{PR(D)\}\{L(D)\}+\backslash ,\backslash cdots\; \backslash right)$

or (''N'' = the number of documents in collection)

:$PR(A)=\; \{1\; -\; d\; \backslash over\; N\}\; +\; d\; \backslash left(\; \backslash frac\{PR(B)\}\{L(B)\}+\; \backslash frac\{PR(C)\}\{L(C)\}+\; \backslash frac\{PR(D)\}\{L(D)\}+\backslash ,\backslash cdots\; \backslash right)\; .$

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

Labels: pagerank, pagerank update

It seems Google's TPR penalty is back, Google around February this year brought a new type of penalty for sites that buy / Sell links. Its called the TPR penalty. In this type of penalty Google will reduce the pagerank of sites that are suspected of Buying or Selling Backlinks. It seems the penalty is back and more sites are affected.

A member has reported Pagerank reduction to his website forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=862890 here.

If you see TPR affecting your site please post here. We are doing some research on this and would love to hear feedback from others. We want to see whether TPR penalty affects only sites that Buy and Sell links or it affects innocent sites caught up inbetween. We have seen some sites loose TB PR without any link selling or buying that is why we need to ASK.

SEG

Labels: Google, pagerank, penalty, Search Engine Optimization

After a lot wait Google is updating its Toolbar Pagerank data, You can check your Pagerank updated using our future page rank tool http://www.searchenginegenie.com/future-pagerank-checking.html . Remember Pagerank is updated internally before being like in Toolbar. First Pagerank was live on Google directory. Google updated its directory pagerank before 5 days now slowly some all the datacenters are getting updated with New Toolbar pagerank data.

Enjoy the pagerank update, Hope everyone are doing fine in this update.

Labels: pagerank, pagerank update

I have seen Greybar display in Google toolbar for quite sometime, I am sure people are wondering what causes it. Personally I can speculate some reasons though i don't have any evidence it. Here are some reasons I see what causes Grey bar display,

1. New pages: When ever a new page is created i don't see a white PR bar anymore. Its grey PageRank display when ever there is a new page created. So as we know if Google has not assigned a PageRank it used to show white bar now its not the case any more we see Grey PageRank display for all new pages which is definitely new with Google.

2. Abandoned Pages: Pages which are not updated for a long time without any update are showing Grey bar i am seeing it across couple of our pages / websites. So probably it has something to do with abandoned pages.

3. Duplicate Pages: When a competitor or some spammer copies contents of that page and duplicates in his site pages the main page might loose its existing value and can display Grey bar. Seeing this substantially duplicate pages do have some reason for Grey Toolbar PageRank display.

4. Potentially penalty to those pages especially link exchange pages since I see more and more grey display in link exchange pages. This is just a speculation though penalty is the least reason I can imagine of since I see lot of grey PageRank pages rank in search engines.

5. A standard reason which has always been is that the communication between your toolbar and Google data center which delivers PageRank to toolbar is some how interrupted. Though this has been a reason given directly by Google employees still i wonder how one page can fetch PageRank from Google data center and other page cannot at the same time. This is a reason but very rare unless you see grey bar for all sites and pages you browse it cannot be justified.

6. Some people speculate Grey bar display has something to do with supplemental index. Google has been into controversy for a long time on supplemental pages debate. Pages in supplemental index never rank and some have seen grey PageRank pages also never rank so it could be a by product of supplemental results. Just an idea only.

7. Bad PR distribution for those pages from internal pages of your site. If those pages don't have good PR distribution then it could cause grey PageRank but for many sites i monitor those pages have ton of internal links. For Example our blog homepage has link from all over our site but shows grey PageRank display. We see this page is crawled regularly, contents from this page is indexed regularly but still it shows Grey PageRank very difficult to say this as a reason.

8. Lack of Good external links or consistent external links to a page: I seriously wonder whether this could be a reason. Most of the inner pages I have seen that shows grey bar has very less or zero external links from other sites coming into it. So i wonder whether this could be a reason for grey bar. PageRank algorithm probably sees that this page is important only for this site and is not a good page for Internet. I do have controversy over this too. Again our blog URL have good links coming to it from external sites but it displays grey bar don't know why. But recently our blog never got Good back links we seriously abandoned our blog for about a year and never posted any new information. So lack of consistent back links could be a reason for Grey PageRank display.

9. TPR ( Toolbar PageRank Reduction ) : Another reason i can speculate is the infamous Toolbar PageRank Reduction penalty which Google applied to sites which buy and sell text links. Is Grey PageRank bar a side effect of it?

My final opinion is if a page is more than a year indexed in Google and has a PR grey bar it could simply be that the page is not of best value for its users. So they dont assign pagerank for that page which might result in that page not passing pagerank to other pages in other words not contributing any link juice to the pages it links to.

Search Engine Genie

Labels: pagerank, pagerank update

Google recently made an update to their index and matt cutts commented on that here http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3615693-3-30.htm . From checking different datacenters I dont see much changes now and the small changes that was visible in the datacenters mentioned in that webmaster world thread is not visible any more.

Most of the changes have reverted back and there are no visible signs of changes that happened on those datacenters propagating to other DCs.

Other cool thing is updates are not the hot topic anymore. People used to discuss 100s of pages for any major updates. When I see this dewey update thread i hardly see it go beyond 30 pages which is a good sign. People are becoming more and more aware of the changes and the communication between search engines and users have improved which has resulted in lesser worries for people.
While Google update mania is no more Pagerank Mania still continues.

False Pagerank update alarm has triggered 10 pages of posting in digital point forums

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=808970&page=2

Labels: Google update, pagerank, pagerank update

Google has clearly stated using nofollow to prevent pagerank flow to your pages like the copyright, TOS etc is not considered spam. But in the recent webmaster chat Google guys did state its not worth preventing links from passing pagerank. Pagerank flows naturally across pages and just preventing some pagerank from passing to any of your pages is not worth the effort.

Labels: pagerank

A webmaster world member has reported pagerank change to his site. It seems his site has lost some pagerank and is now downgraded from PR5 to PR3. This looks like the New Google “Toolbar Pagerank Reduction” or TPR policy. Google introduced TPR around December 2007 to go after text link buyers and sellers. Text link advertising which passes pagerank is against Google's policy and they introduced TPR to tackle.

Lots of sites depend on Google toolbar pagerank to judge the value of a link apart of other things like number of backlinks in yahoo and Alexa ranking. Google toolbar pagerank is a very important when it comes to buying or selling these days. A PR9 link goes for around 800$ a month which is a huge amount for a link. I am sure this industry is not flourishing anymore due to the introduction of TPR. TPR reduced text link advertising to atleast 40 to 60% I would say. It sent bubbles in link publisher's stomach and many advertisers who were selling links for their site or buying links to their site panicked and removed all of them to make sure they don’t loose any further trust in Google.
I know being part of a SEO company that this TPR affected lot of sites that didn't buy links but inside I appreciate Google for taking strong efforts to protect their Algorithm from being manipulated through text link advertising. I have always said Text link advertising is for the rich and famous for competitive keywords and it should stop or real quality sites that don’t buy anchor text links will not get the exposure in Google that they deserve.

Forum discussion in webmasterworld.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3625049.htm

Labels: Google, pagerank, pagerank update