More on the PR Update...

Since a lot of my clients and partners are noticing a change in their PR, I thought I should do a quick follow up post.

If you are concerned about a change in Google PR as reflected on the toolbar. Here’s a few things to consider:

• Google Toolbar PR and actual PR and 2 different numbers, just because the Toolbar says something, that doesn`t mean it`s your sites true, actual PR.

• PR works on a logarithmic scale so as more websites get indexed the majority of sites lose PR relatively. Google is doing updates more frequently because there are so many new sites to index. Eventually it will nearly impossible to achieve a PR 7 or 8, most of us will be lucky to get PR at all, but this isn`t to say your site has lost any value.

• Your PR is diluted across your whole site, as you add new pages you must add deep links to each new page as well as increase links to the main page in a greater proportion to be sure of a PR increase which will not help SERPs. Furthermore if your non WWW version of your site is not redirected to your WWW version, it should be as to not split PR between the 2 URL`s.

• Trust rank is far more important than page rank. Who links to you, who you link to. Google knows very well many sites that sell links and in an effort to confuse sellers and buyers, they can take away PR as reflected on the toolbar. This isn`t to say you have lost any true PR.


If you are a partner or if you are selling links, there are special ways you should be hosting your links in order to ensure you don`t get flagged as a link seller and lose Toolbar PR. I suggest:

• Limit the number of OB links per page to 10-15 max, maybe even less on the HP

• Try to only links to sites that are relevant and can be seen as useful to the users of your site

• Do not host your links at the very top or very bottom of the page… within the body or even a sidebar is much more natural looking

• Do not state the links are paid or sponsored anywhere from within the site

• Embed the links within content, stand alone links look very suspicious - Instead, offer: Hosted Marketing Pages or Contextual Links

• Throw in at least one authoritative, relevant OB link on your HP that is obviously NOT paid (for example: NASA, a .gov, etc)

• For each new link make sure you add at least 200-500 words of fresh content to that page

• Continue to add fresh new links to your site each month, even if they are not higher PR, the trend makes your site appear as more of an authority


Bottom line:

Toolbar PR does NOT = True or Actual PR
If you sell links, be smart! Host them in a natural looking way!
Work on continuing to add value to your site... if you want to be successful on-line, you`re going to have to invest a lot of time and money, nothing comes easy, and if it does, it won`t last long.

Good luck! Now go write some content :-)