23Apr

Where Has My PageRank Gone?

I've noticed recently that my SearchStatus Firefox extension is showing my Google PageRank as zero. Why this would suddenly drop from PR6 (which is what it has been for ages), I have no idea.

Several weeks ago I changed my site over from HTML to PHP, but I took good care to make sure that my .htaccess page was set up so that none of my visitors — human or robot — got lost.

And I can see that Google has indexed the PHP version of my pages.

The funny thing is that if I try to find out my PageRank using an online tool, some will show it as zero (or even minus one!) while some (most) show it as still being six.

What gives? Any ideas are much appreciated. Anyone else had similar issues?

Posted on: April 23, 2007 | 10 Comments

10 Comments Posted

I am showing your site's PR as a zero (0) also. You don't think the switch from HTML to PHP could have affected it in any way. Even though you have a redirect, I would see all of those pages as brand new pages. There is a difference between index.html and index.php -- not the same even if your .htaccess says they should be.

I've been hanging onto a pagerank of 6 as well -- seems like the 7 is the tough hurdle to crack; good luck getting your six back!

1. Posted by Martin Ringlein on April 23, 2007

Meh, it's near the end of the month, and Google Dance time. It could just be a blip while they sort out the indexing of the PHP site. It would have been much worse if your page rank went down to 1. PageRank 0 tell me your being organised on Googles server.

2. Posted by Alec on April 23, 2007

It's normal loose your google pr when changing pages name. Also if using .htaccess.

Link all internal pages to www.domain.com and don't redirect to www.domain.com/index.php with the .htaccess. It can confuse google bot...

Redirect only old pages .htm to new .php

Sorry for my bad english...

Nice site

3. Posted by homeworker on April 24, 2007

Yesterday I searched for 'web design blog' and this site came up as number one, so something's working :)

4. Posted by mahud on April 24, 2007

Google takes some time to update its pagerank

also have you got a look at your Google Webmaster account?...

it does provide great info on crawl rate..etc.

I'm also using a Firefox plugins which get your site as pagerank zero :(

5. Posted by Hans on April 24, 2007

Thanks for the feedback. Google Webmaster Tools does show that everything looks fine behind-the-scenes. I guess I'm just fretting for no reason.

Sidenote: Webmaster Tools is turning into a really impressive service. There are a bunch of tools in there that I didn't know existed.

The query stats that shows your rank for search queries and the top ones that get clicked is especially useful.

6. Posted by Christian Watson on April 24, 2007

mahud — thanks for stopping by! By the way, I don't know what your tag line "All appointed to the definite beautiful" means but it sounds great — fanciful and yet mysterious at the same time!

7. Posted by Christian Watson on April 24, 2007

There's also the remove url stuff that I find really useful.I don't know perhaps Google might have taken your content as duplicate. It's also good to let it know of your preferred domain.

There's much controversy over the duplicate issue. For us, Wordpress user's it seems more doubtful with category section,archival section,etc.

Perhaps this might have also played a role.

8. Posted by Hans on April 24, 2007

Thanks Christian. It's a song lyric from an underground (mostly 70's) band known as the Can. not much that they produced made much sense, actually, and I'm not sure what it means either. I just know I like it ;)

9. Posted by mahud on April 25, 2007

my blog IhateDesign have a pagerank 4, in the SearchStatus have none and other tools have a diffrent results, i have no idea....

10. Posted by IhateDesign on April 26, 2007