My PageRank Decreased
Formerly a PageRank of 5, ConnorWilson.com has now been demoted to the oh-so-generic PR 4. But why is that?
After being a solid PR5 for over 10 months straight, I’ve been included into the recent demotions of sites, mainly for selling links. The problem I have with this is that I have never sold a penny of advertising on this site. I plan to in the future, but for the record, there has never been a payed link here.
Top Commentators?
One suspicion I have about this is that my Top Commentators’ box may be perceived as a purchased links section. Clearly this isn’t paid, but if it is true, what can I do about it?
- Add nofollow? Negative. I’m not taking that away from commenters who take the time to leave multiple comments throughout the month.
- Take it out? Negative, same reason as above.
For those that comment because of the PR5 link that you get for a few comments a month- will you stop? I’m all for linking to those who participate, but if it’s all for the minimal SEO factor I can contribute, I’d rather take it out all together.
Blogroll?
The only other option, and both seem viable, is my blogroll. I can’t imagine any of those sites being associated with spammy paid links that Google is looking to eliminate, so why would this happen anyways?
The blogroll, if anything else still in the new design, would be the first to go. It’s just lost all value to me, and even to those I’ve exchanged links with. Most sites have died, gone inactive, or I’ve even stopped visiting. Alex Mould even paid me in full for a design project (upfront, for his own reasons) and disappeared! (Note: Alex, if you’re alive, you really need to get in touch)
From a Concerned Reader
One other thing that was brought to my attention a while ago by a reader, who will remain anonymous unless they chose otherwise in the comments, is the influx of comments from mostly UK based web design “firms”. Off the top of my head there was Acopic, MB, Discount Web Design, etc… who all apparently rank highly for terms such as “web design” and the like.
The reader’s thoughts were that they were solely commenting for the link, and that their sites were bound to be associated with sites that could have a negative impact on my own site.
Now, of course it would be nice to hear from those three in response to that, Matthew Brown, Vincent, and “Acopic” and the like, but also any other reader’s thoughts on those three sites (they’re all in the top list this month) and if you think this concern if something worth taking action.
I don’t mean to offend anyone here, just thinking aloud… and then typing it. It really annoys my cat.
New Design This Week
If by now you haven’t realized, the moderately, but not really hyped new overhaul in terms of design and all things displayed goes down on November 1st. I’ve got teams of engineers working around the clock to make sure the emotion of disappointment isn’t one you experience this fine Thursday.
It’ll either be a late Oct. 31st launch, or a Thurday night launch. We’ll see 
Leave a comment
Henry
October 29th, 2007 at 7:35 PM
Man that sucks, you deserve a PR of 6 not four, on the bright side my blog went up to 2, yes a measly two.
Adam M
October 29th, 2007 at 8:27 PM
I saw that you’re site went down and I was astonished. One of my buddies sites went up to PR 5 and they don’t update the site nearly as much as you do.
I don’t comment here for the link back. Whether your PR 4 or PR 5, I comment because I enjoy this site and I know how nice it is to get people commenting.
Martin
October 29th, 2007 at 9:56 PM
Did the people who link to you get affected by the Pagerank hit? Maybe that is why you went down. I saw that happen to a few people.
Mike
October 29th, 2007 at 10:42 PM
I post here because I enjoy reading its nice to get something back for posting, however my link in the blogroll still has the same pr so it could have been my site that has affected yours.
I like reading what you have to say maybe because your Canadian maybe because what you say makes sense maybe because there is no piticular reason I just know when I see there is a new message I come to the site and read it.
I was actually thinking the other day why does Connor link to some of these sites in the blogroll but didnt say anything because it is your decision!
Looking forward to the new design and hopefully I will be the first to see it and comment on it!
Connor Wilson
October 29th, 2007 at 11:07 PM
I don’t think decreased link value would really have an effect on my PR here. I had some pretty solid Pr6+ links, and a pile of more PR5 ones. Regardless, Yahoo finds almost 3800 backlinks for me- PR4 doesn’t suit that number, I think.
I guess I’ll be lumping PR in with Alexa and Technorati in my list of services and tools I don’t use or care about anymore
Also, thanks for the responses Adam and Mike
Deron Sizemore
October 30th, 2007 at 12:04 AM
Sorry to hear about your PR. If it makes you feel any better, mine went up to a 4 from a 0.
Ok, feel better now?
Seriously, PR seems a little shady to me. It almost seems like there is no rhyme or reason to some rankings. I’ve seen a couple new sites get PR5 with this update yet they are only a couple months old and hardly had what could be considered a lot of backlinks.
I’ve got 11,000 backlinks according to Yahoo but I’m at a 4. I figure that even though I’ve got 11,000 backlinks in Yahoo, so who knows?
I’m glad I’ve finally got a PR. It’s somewhat of a motivator to actually see a number down there in my status bar, but I agree, not worrying about it is the way to go.
Deron Sizemore
October 30th, 2007 at 12:05 AM
Ok, it’s late and I didn’t proofread what I wrote. I realize that “I figure that even though I’ve got 11,000 backlinks in Yahoo, so who knows?” in my last comment, made no sense. I have no idea where I was going with that sentence.
I’m off to bed.
Mike
October 30th, 2007 at 12:28 AM
I have seen some websites with very little backlinks and only a few months old get a pr 5.
Just looking at my newest domain,
Creation date: 24 Sep 2007 18:12:50
It was just updated to a pr 4 in the last couple of days. It has few backlinks and not very much of anything in the terms of content. How does this work, I am starting to think page rank means absolutely nothing.
After a quick look some of my other domains have page ranks from 0-5 I dont really get it but I dont really obsess about it to much. Back to the tradional ways of just checking the stats for me!
Henry
October 30th, 2007 at 5:13 AM
I forgot to say, i don’t comment for the link. I comment because your my friend and your blog was probably the biggest inspiration for mine. I reckon cleaning out your blogroll will improve it, like Naresh’s enaresh.com isn’t even a blog now.
Martin
October 30th, 2007 at 7:43 AM
Hold on a sec guys. You are talking about apples vs. oranges. First off, Yahoo looks at all links whether it is nofollow or not. Google is the only one (pretty sure of this) that excludes nofollow. So the 5000 comments on blogs with nofollow comments gives linkbacks in Yahoo, but Google. just throws those away.
Also, the number of links does not matter. The quality of links does. If you have a few solid links from sites that are in the same “niche” as yours, then your PR will be higher than a site with 1 million irrelevant links.
Quality vs. Quantity.
David Hopkins
October 30th, 2007 at 11:45 AM
Connor, you could always try signing up to Google Webmaster Central and submiting a request for reinclusion. But first you would have to remmove whatever they have penalised you for, if anything. My guess would be that it it your top commentors. If I people commenting with spammy link text as the name, I would delete them or change the comment name to their real name. I always used to comment with: Mutiny design, until somone changed my link text and I realised that people don’t like commenting as anything other than their name.
You may have been mistaken as a link seller. However, Google seems to have made it harder to get PR5+ links. I have seen a lot of blogs only get PR4 when they would have probablybeen PR5 or even 6 this time last year.
Adam M
October 30th, 2007 at 12:41 PM
PR has been going down hill for a while. There are so many rumours that Google is dropping it that most people don’t even care anymore. I know it can feel like a lot of hard word for nothing but I really think Google’s just screwing themselves over.
They’re changing something that people liked for no reason (or none that we know of). Keep up the great work Connor.
Acopic Web Design
October 30th, 2007 at 4:47 PM
Hi Connor. I read this article with interest as it’s something that applies to our website as well. We’ve also just been dropped to PR4 from a solid PR5. Obviously we don’t sell links and infact we have very few outbound links on our site. I personally think that Google is just re-evaluating it’s linking algorithm. I reckon multiple factors have resulted in our PR drop.
Regarding the ‘Concerned Reader’. I can understand their point of view but I can assure you I comment because I read the articles and feel that I can add something useful. I comment across multiple sites (most without a top commenters section - and most with nofollow).
If you look through my comments I’m sure you’ll see that 99% of them add something useful to the conversation.
Anyway - don’t let the PR drop get you down. Keep up the good work.
Neil
Mike
October 31st, 2007 at 8:11 PM
After doing a couple of searches, maybe the sites in the top commenters are not the reason your page rank went down. I noticed after a quick search that you link to john chow and tyler cruz a few times. These sites both had their PR lowered could this be a reason as to why?
Naresh
November 1st, 2007 at 1:54 AM
Yeah, the pagerank got a bit weird. Your blog with quality content went down, while my shi**y site with very little content (undomd5.com) went up to pr5 from unranked. I don’t get it.
Don’t let it get you down.
Acopic Web Design
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:19 AM
After looking more into this I honestly think google has just re-evaluated it’s pageranking. I don’t think all the PR drops are simply sites being penalised. I reckon Google just thought it had got it’s sums wrong the first time.
Jon
November 4th, 2007 at 3:25 PM
I wouldn’t worry about it - this simply confirms that toolbar pagerank simply means less and less. I have a site which went from PR6 to PR3 with no change in rankings, I also have numerous sites which went up in PR this update which also have had no rank changes.
Jalaj
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:23 AM
How about renaming Top Commentators to something not generic say Blogroll-2 or anything with no comment numbers by the side… That way you can be assured that you are not punished for top Commentators… And if Google thinks that keeping DoFollow links on a blog is an offense then…..
Dallas Office Space
December 16th, 2007 at 9:46 PM
Most of the sites have come down in PR. However your blog is great, I’m sure you’ll be higher than a 5 on the next update.
Pete
December 29th, 2007 at 7:30 AM
This PR latest update has caused a major shuffle in PR values accross a massive number of sites. I think your PR decrease from a 5 to 4 is most likely due to the sites which link to you losing PR which then lowers the link juice passed to you. Reasons for their hit is most likely being paid links, general directories (many of which also took a hit recently).
With regards to company names in the comments, I would only accept real names rather than company / domain names such as “Cheap Web Designs”.
SirCommy
December 29th, 2007 at 6:45 PM
I’ll have to agree with Pete. From own experience, I’ve seen how much lower pageranked pages harm you if they link to you. Google does not mention this anywhere, in fact, the way they say it, they make you believe every link only increases your popularity, which is unlikely true, from what I can see. Also, they’ve improved their algorithmic ways of calculating pagerank. They get to be more and more strict. I can agree to their strictness since it will offer the searchers more and more relevant results, but at some point, they’re just overreacting. Oh well, there’s nothing you can do about it, just to comply
Timous
March 10th, 2008 at 6:10 PM
I think that the google page rank is very iffy. I have seen sites, specifically blogs, fluctuate tremedously. This happens a lot when Google does a major “Update”.
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