PR here then gone

[vegas-kid]

About two weeks ago i finnaly got some PR (4) after about 4 months of link building. I check back today and now i a m a zero. What the heck is google doing to my heart? Are they in the middle of an update or something?

Vegas-kid

[vegas-kid]

and back again. Still a 4.

[Mount_Vernon_Real_Estate]

Don't quote me on this, but I belive the reason for the inconsistency is due to the fact that you may be hitting a differnet google server.

example - Here is a list of some of the google servers and the rankings they may have for your site:
64.233.161.99: 2
64.233.161.104: 2
66.102.7.99: 2
66.102.7.104: 0
216.239.59.99: 0
216.239.59.104: 2
216.239.37.104: 0

I have seen the same thing on some of my own sites. I will have a ranking when checking from my office, but not at home. I have also noticed different rankings and placements based on the time of day I check my sites.

[Cedar City Utah Realtor]

we are in the middle of an update and you are seeing different data centers. If you had 0 and are now up to 4 you most likely will end up with 4. Congrats

[vegas-kid]

would disapearing backlinks be part of this update? I was shoing 300 links and now it's under 200. I understand yhis is a sample, but why take out 2/3rds of the sample?

Vegas-kid

[HHI Golf Guy]

would disapearing backlinks be part of this update? I was shoing 300 links and now it's under 200. I understand yhis is a sample, but why take out 2/3rds of the sample?

Vegas-kid

Mount Vernon is correct in stating that there may be variances in each datacenter. That will change once the data propagates to all DC's.

Another thing to remember is that the Google Toolbar is not always reliable. There are many times when it shows a PR zero when a site actually has PR.

Don't worry about the backlinks that Google reports. First, they only show a random sampling of links from any given site. Second, you may experience the propagation issue by DC. If you want to know how many total links point to your web site, Yahoo is usually the best place to check.

My advice is to forget about PR and total links. What you should pay attention to with Google is making sure all of your pages are indexed properly, and if any of your pages are listed as Supplemental Results you address those issues.

As far as links go, your focus should be purely quality of inbound links not quantity of inbound links. Have you ever wondered why there are tons of web sites with thousands and thousands of inbound links but they still don't rank very well in the SERP's? With equal on-page optimization, a site with 400 quality backlinks will easily beat a site with 1,500 inferior inbound links.

[vegas-kid]

I keep hearing everyone say this. "get quality inboud links"

So if it's not link exchange and not directories, then were the heck do those 400 quality backlinks come from? You have to buy them?

Who wants to sell me "quality backlink?" Maybe my competitor will just link to me because i have "fresh unique content."

[HHI Golf Guy]

I keep hearing everyone say this. "get quality inboud links"

So if it's not link exchange and not directories, then were the heck do those 400 quality backlinks come from? You have to buy them?

Who wants to sell me "quality backlink?" Maybe my competitor will just link to me because i have "fresh unique content."

Finding quality links is a time consuming and frustrating task. I am not exaggerating when I say that in my own link building that I reject 98% of the link proposals and the sites and directories that I research on my own.

As far as buying links goes, I can tell you that I do not purchase any links for my client sites in my SEO efforts. At first, I bought a few links. But now I don't see it as being necessary for SEO. On the other hand, it is probably beneficial for an agent to purchase links on a local, top rated local portal web site. Not for SEO, of course - but to drive traffic to the web site.

Link exchanges work great, but you have to be very careful who you trade links with and how you set up your own site to handle link exchanges.

RSS feeds work great (not blog feeds, but page content feeds from your existing web site). Articles also work well, but you need to find a good place to publish them (the big article depository sites don't work that well for SEO).

The problem with anything - not just SEO - nowadays is that everyone wants instant success and gratification. It takes a lot of time to develop links and search engine rankings. I tell all of my clients that for sites that it usually takes 1-3 months to make an impact on MSN, 5-8 months on Yahoo, and 9-15 months on Google. Of course, timelines vary according to current on-page and off-page optimization and the strength of the competition.

Not only does it take time to build quality links, but for an SE like Google those links have to "age" before they become trusted links and count more in the ranking algorithm.

Contrary to what you may read on the internet, SEO is not that easy - especially in competitive markets. There are dozens and dozens of on-page and off-page factors that can positively or negatively impact a web site. Not only that, but you need to find the correct balance to rank at the top of all 3 search engines.