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Article By: RobinPorter
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Why Has My Website Lost Pagerank?
Many webmasters were up in arms back in October as Google seemingly reduced their Pagerank. This affected many millions of websites. Panic resulted as many webmasters were greatly concerned as to why this had happened and how they could restore their precious Pagerank back to their website.
Why did this happen?
First lets take a look at Pagerank and how it is calculated. Pagerank is understood to be calculated according to the number and quality of incoming links to a website. It's a complex formula that only Google knows, also taking into account the importance of the page that the link originates from. Pagerank is calculated on a scale of 1 to 10 but it is not a linear scale ie getting from 8 to 9 is a lot, lot harder than getting from 7 to 8. Other factors it is also thought to include are ones such as the authority and trust of a website.
It is wrongly believed by many webmasters that Pagerank may be the main critical factor that specifies their search engine ranking positions ( SERPS). To be honest there are a large amount of factors that Google looks at to determine the SERPS, One of them IS Pagerank although it can be a deciding factor if all other things are equal.
Over the last few years the effect has turned many webmasters into Pagerank junkies. They worry about their Pagerank and how to get links from other sites with higher Pagerank and they decline to link to sites with lower Pagerank etc etc. This has resulted in a whole industry of websites acquiring and selling links according to the Pagerank of the link page. As a result this has enraged sleeping dragon over at Google.
It has been rumoured that this readjustment of the Pagerank scores is due to Google penalising websites that are involved in the purchasing and selling of text links, with the main aim of passing on Pagerank and hence improving their SERPS.
It is also suspected that sites have lost Pagerank as a result of bad linking, broken linking and other general errors. The thinking behind this is to do with Trust and Authority - Google thinks that a site with broken links and links to "bad neighbourhoods" is not one that should get a high trust score.
Could this be the sole reason for the Pagerank readjustment?
Unlikely, as it is not believed that this was the sole underlying reason, as various sites were affected that had no involvement in buying or selling links. It is more probable that this was a complete overhaul or readjustments of Google's Pagerank scoring systems, which has led to a complete broad reassessment. The fact that so many experts point to the trading of links as a reason, is a theory that Google are probably pleased to let us believe. Basically, they do not like the buying and selling of links for the purposes of increasing SERPS, so they're happy for us to believe that they've applied penalties to this which they hope will then deter webmasters from doing this in future. The true reasons will probably never be known.
So how can you increase your sites Pagerank?
- Firstly you should continue to engage in an ongoing link building campaign, getting links from websites of a similar theme to yours. Do not get hung up about Pagerank.
- Avoid dubious practices that Google frown upon such as buying and selling of text links. If you do buy text links for any other reason than to improve Pagerank, make sure the no follow tag is inserted in the link. However, it is much safer to avoid them totally.
- Check your site for broken links - including links to other sites, and make sure you don't link to sites that may be considered bad - such as spammy sites and those involved in selling text links.
Too many urban myths exist concerning Pagerank and the truth is it is not the "be all and end all". Try to just concentrate on optimising your site and building incoming links, getting good content and applying a good relevant theme to your website and let everyone else worry about Pagerank. Because ultimately, it just isn't that important.
Article Source: ArticleZones.com
About the Author
Robin Porter is CEO of UK web design company Arpey Internet, which specialises in small business web design and helping small businesses get more business online. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.
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