I’ve just posted this to a messageboard I frequent, and it made enough sense for me to want to echo it here. It’s about Google PageRank and the recent fluctuations site owners (especially blog owners) are seeing recently. Just to add context, there are some comments labelled [] to explain things to readers who weren’t following the thread to know. Here goes:
I had 2 blogs that got smacked [PR suddenly dropped to 0]. I cleaned one up and applied for reconsideration. (You know, keep one as a control and all that).
Well .. the one what I applied for reconsideration is still 0 … the other has gone up to a 2 !!
Sometimes I wonder if the blogs that got smacked HAVE got smacked because of paid advertising. The two blogs of mine that got smacked (compared to the ones that didn’t) suffered from a disproportion of outgoing links over incoming links and had thematic inconsistency issues [That's dealing with topics that are unrelated, like family affairs, followed by drug treatment centers, followed by a post about gadgets, followed by food]. Also, post regularity was much lower haphazard than the blogs that weren’t hit. (3-4 posts on one day, none on other days)
Personally I’m not convinced that this is solely because of paid posted OR that it’s an automated process looking for “markers” on blogs.
The one thing that I do suspect is that Google has realised that it’s algorithm needed tweaking. The nature of blogs gives them an artificially inflated PR score compared to other CMS/Static websites (lots of cross-linking, lots of regular new content, rapid establishment of backlinks/site graphs). I personally think that they have adjusted this (albeit too aggressively initially) and what we’re seeing is more readjustment …
But hey .. who know?
Would love to know your thoughts ..
