Author Topic: My google page rank dropped to 0, anyone have any ideas why? (Read 19917 times)

relequestual · « **on:** January 29, 2009, 03:21 AM »

Hi everyone.
I know DC isn't exactly the place for websites and SEO stuff, but I trust people here than some random forum I find on google.

Recently, my google page rank of my site appaholic dot co dot uk has dropped to 0.
can anyone suggest a reason for this?

The site traffic has not changed, and if anything, its increased over the last week.

Any suggestions or comments welcome.
Thanks

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** January 29, 2009, 10:17 AM »

google does update pagerank occasionally but.. 0 seems weird, like a bug.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #2 on:** January 29, 2009, 10:27 AM »

Some of the reasons for pagerank drop:

- Websites inbound links are less and outbound links are linking to either spam or scraper sites
- Site sells "text links" which is not allowed by google
- Content is updated rarely and no new sites are linking to it
- Site is used by spammers in their comments

and many more reasons like this. As I'm tracking some SEO blogs so i came up with this few reasons for hurting SERP reputation and pagerank.

app103 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 29, 2009, 11:10 AM »

Go to Google Webmaster Tools and see if there are any messages for you there: https://www.google.c...tools/messages?hl=en

Sometimes if they take away your page rank they have also removed pages from their index, and they may tell you why, there.

One of the things not mentioned by mahesh2k is that they also take away PR if they think you are doing paid posting.

Also be careful about what directories you are submitting your blog to. If there are too many splogs in the directory, you can get punished for being listed along with them (birds of a feather flock together?)

And be very careful about quoting in your posts. Too much quoting can get you slapped for duplicate content and labeled as a splog. Make sure your own original content outweighs the quoting by at least 3:1, which means you should be writing 3 times more than you quote. Quote 100 words and you need to add 300 of your own to balance it.

google does update pagerank occasionally but.. 0 seems weird, like a bug.
-mouser (January 29, 2009, 10:17 AM)

Not a bug. I was hit hard on my ebook site last year and went from PR4 to 0. Just got myself up to 2 again. Reason? Having the "wrong" TLD. It seems that nearly everyone that had a .tk domain name associated with their site was slapped at the same time and reduced to 0.

It is Google's position that only spammers, splogs, and malware sites use .tk domain names and if you use one you must be a bad site. It doesn't matter how many inbound links you have, or what the quality, reputation, & PR of the sites linking to you is, or if your site was on the front page of digg... if you have a .tk you are crap in their eyes.

I am glad it came when it did though. I was just about to buy the domain I was using and go from free to paid status. I would hate to have paid for 9 years of that domain name and then get hit.

Veign · « **Reply #4 on:** January 29, 2009, 11:41 AM »

First, signup and use Googles Webmaster tools. This is the way the Google will communicate to you if there is an issue with the website.

Why it would go to 0 most likely has nothing to do with inbound links as it really only takes one to get a pagerank of at least 1.

Reason why a zero:
- Your site was hacked and is filled with hidden spam text. A common hack is to not change the look of the site and only include links in comments and hidden text - hard to spot unless you think you've been hacked and check the code. Google Webmaster tools will tell you when this occurs
- You are doing some black-hat SEO techniques and have been caught. If this this is the case then you need to remove all the techniques and beg Google to forgive you
- You are linking to many, many bad neighborhoods. Since you control outbound links, Google will penalize for linking to bad websites.
- The page you are looking at, with a zero, recently changed its page name and therefore has no pagerank stored. PageRank is tied to a page and not a domain. This means that if a new page is added to your site it start at zero and usually gains its first Pagerank from your internal linking strategies.
- You actually have a pagerank but when you viewed it, it was querying a data center that was not responding.

relequestual · « **Reply #5 on:** January 29, 2009, 11:59 AM »

I cant see I've done any of these, but thanks for your help!
I found that in the webmasters tools you can chat to google and ask them to re evaluate your site. I guess I shall wait to hear back from them!

Thanks DC people!

Veign · « **Reply #6 on:** January 29, 2009, 11:59 AM »

When I went your site I see you have a 6 weight. Where is it zero?

relequestual · « **Reply #7 on:** January 29, 2009, 12:32 PM »

a 6?
I've even used sites which check multiple servers for page rank, and its 0 still.
I'm talking about the home page

Veign · « **Reply #8 on:** January 29, 2009, 12:52 PM »

Hmm. Seems that the toolbar pagerank was stuck from another site I had visited.

Look at the code of your website's homepage. Look at the very large block of JS text for creating some sort of tree or something. That looks bad from an SEO standpoint and might be considered stuffing hidden text. Google crawler does look into JS code.

relequestual · « **Reply #9 on:** January 29, 2009, 01:03 PM »

Darn.

Yeh, i can see the code, i know what it is, a tree indeed.
That souldnt be an issue, as I have a wordpress plugin which generates all the SEO stuff for me, including the map google needs.
I havent changed the layout or style of the website in months!

Veign · « **Reply #10 on:** January 29, 2009, 01:28 PM »

Just because you have a plugin doesn't mean its controlling everything. SEO is a broad term and encompasses every aspect of a website and why it ranks where it ranks.

relequestual · « **Reply #11 on:** January 29, 2009, 01:30 PM »

ah ok. I thought it took care of the important stuff.
Even so, the blocks being there or not, hasnt changed, and so therefore i cant see how they could affect it. right?

Veign · « **Reply #12 on:** January 29, 2009, 01:33 PM »

Nope. Google has more than one website to look at and catching things takes time. This is why black-hat SEO works. It produces results until Google catches on and bans or penalizes a website.

Also, the SEO plugin takes care of some things but don't fall into a false sense of security that its handling enough.

relequestual · « **Reply #13 on:** January 29, 2009, 01:43 PM »

Oh ok.
Well my refers from google have stayed the same, if not increased recently!
Should I really worry that my page ranks have all dropped?

Veign · « **Reply #14 on:** January 29, 2009, 03:10 PM »

Yes. It may be the sign of a bigger issue. If there is an issue it should be resolved before long term damage is done.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #15 on:** January 30, 2009, 08:00 AM »

I agree with app103 on point of bad neighborhood especially when you're on shared hosting. Your PR drops if you're part of them.

Just for the info.
One more thing is you can use this site for submission of your blog/site. And let me remind you look at those directories carefully if these directories are jsut part of scraper sites and ad patched directories then maybe you shouldn't submit to such locations. You can start with directories having PR 3 and above, skip PR0-PR2 directories for now. Make sure you submit your blog/site at correct category.

Veign · « **Reply #16 on:** January 30, 2009, 08:48 AM »

Having backlinks to your site can't hurt your Google ranking. Google is smart enough to understand that you can't control who links to your therefore they won't penalize you. Imagine if this was the case. I could sink my competitor just by submitting them to certain directories or websites. Not gonna happen. Backlinks are a 0 or greater factor. They can either effect your site positively or nothing. It won't swing into a negative region.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #17 on:** January 30, 2009, 09:46 AM »

Agree Chris. But i don't understand why people in most SEO blogs and Forums ask us to stay away from bad neighborhood and link farms.

app103 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 30, 2009, 09:51 AM »

A lot of these bad directories require you to link back to them, and that's where the problem lies. Sure you could add your competitor to all these link farms and bad directories, but could you get your competitor to carry a little button linking back to them?

That's how people end up linking to bad neighborhoods without realizing it.

Veign · « **Reply #19 on:** January 30, 2009, 01:42 PM »

Agree Chris. But i don't understand why people in most SEO blogs and Forums ask us to stay away from bad neighborhood and link farms.
-mahesh2k (January 30, 2009, 09:46 AM)

Its the direction of the link that is key. You have to avoid bad neighborhoods with outbound links, which are fully within your control. When linking to someone think of it as casting a vote for the site with the anchor text assisting in what the vote is for. By linking to a bad neighborhood, you are in essence, saying I approve of this website and want some of the trust and link juice from my page to be shifted to them. This is why linking to them can hurt you.