Page Rank - Current page is not ranked by Google. Good or bad?? 2

[JoJoH]

Hi all,

I have a newly indexed site in Google, when I tried to check its page rank, the Page Rank is grayed out which according to Google's alt tag when you mouse over that grayed out Page rank area is "Current page is not ranked by Google". Is this good or bad? Please advice.

Thanks in advance!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[ulteriormotif]

It is perfectly normal.

Page Rank is only calculated periodically, so it is normal for a page to be spidered and included without PR being calculated for a while.

Up to about three months ago this happened on a very regular schedule.. freshbot crawled sites throughout the month and included new material as it was found, but deepbot would follow up with a thorough crawl once a month. At the end of the month (ie, usually about three weeks after a deep crawl) the index as a whole would be updated based on that deep crawl, and page rank would be calculated at that stage.

In the last three months though, Google has largely disposed of deepbot and is moving towards more of a rolling update based on freshbot's crawl data. Quite how they are handling the recalculation of PR and on what schedule is not yet clear - in fact PR on the toolbar has been in flux for a couple of months and is still rather unstable.

In any case, for new pages to have a grey bar for some time is quite normal. As long as the page is being crawled, it will be calculated eventually.

 

[JoJoH]

Hi ulteriormotif!

Thanks for the reply! It's good to know that my site is not banned or something(especially when it is newly indexed!). Anyways, would you mind sharing how did you know so much about Google? Such as when Google is using a deepbot, or what Google is doing recently? Is it based on observation or log files? Please advice.

Thanks in advance!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[fxcolin]

JoJoH,

looks like the bar is now white.
I noticed on your sub pages, (unless I'm blind) that none of them have a link to your home page.

First, that's not user friendly for your visitors, but also by putting those links there it will help your pr.



" a pat on the back... is only
18 inches away from a kick in the arse "

http://www.fxstudios.ca

Web Development

http://www.fxstudios.net

Web Hosting
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[JoJoH]

Hi fxcolin,

White(PR 0/10)!? That is bad... where did you see that?
And thanks for the reminder about putting a link back to my home page!

Thanks again!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[fxcolin]

no problem.

uh, well I clicked the link to your site and on the google bar it is white.

and no it is not bad.
You have to start somewhere. after the 'grey out' comes white bar and then you'll get ranked.

how long have you been live ?

" a pat on the back... is only
18 inches away from a kick in the arse "

http://www.fxstudios.ca

Web Development

http://www.fxstudios.net

Web Hosting
Hosting For Web Designers

 

[JoJoH]

Well, I've just optimized my site and the new pages was indexed like 1 day ago. The old, unoptimized page has been in Google's database for ages(I didn't want the old site to be indexed by Google but someone linked to my site before and I guess that's how it got in there...). Really? Greyed out then white then rankings? Why does Google have to scare people like that! Thanks again for your help fxcolin!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[fxcolin]

well it's supposed to be that...
when you're grey, in google's eyes -you don't exist.
when it's white, google has found you and begun crawling.
then eventually a rank.

get that home link in ASAP. that will affect your rank.

" a pat on the back... is only
18 inches away from a kick in the arse "

http://www.fxstudios.ca

Web Development

http://www.fxstudios.net

Web Hosting
Hosting For Web Designers

 

[ulteriormotif]

....Such as when Google is using a deepbot, or what Google is doing recently? Is it based on observation or log files? ...

Hi JoJoH. didn't notice the query was from you when I first replied.

A potted version of the way Google's spider/update system has worked until recently:

In your log files you'll notice 'Googlebot' showing up. Googlebot came from a range of IP addresses.. or two ranges actually.

Previously, if G-bot came from a 64.*** IP number that was Freshbot come a-callin' (Freshy tended to call throughout the month and be somewhat erratic, and often alarmed new webmasters because she would take a page here and there or part of a site, or one level of a site, but not the whole lot.) Freshy favoured sites like news sites with frequently updating content. Newer sites often received semi regular visits from Freshy for a couple of months until she had figured out where the new site fit - ie, frequently changing content so keep visiting regularly.. or content changes rarely so a monthly deep visit is adequate. Freshy has typically also been the cause of queries from webmasters about new sites - "Google was listing my new site yesterday and today it's gone!" - this is because Freshy picked up the pages and put them in the index for a couple of days, but a site or page wasn't typically 'cemented' into the index until it had been through a deepcrawl and full update. Freshy tended to disappear a day or two before Deepbot started her monthly deep crawl and reappear once the deep crawl was nearly done.

Deepbot came from a 216.*** IP address and basically recrawled all Google's indexed pages plus any new stuff that Freshy had found. As the web grew so did the time the deepcrawl took. Around a week by early this year, with dribs and drabs still being spidered up to around ten days after starting. Deepcrawled pages weren't updated in the public index immediately, but were stored in the background while the Google engineers did their thing and tested and tweaked the new algorithm. The crawl cycle was roughly monthly.. so about 3-4 weeks after the deepcrawl started, the update would start, and the public index would fluctuate for several days as the new index was rolled out across the data centers. Towards the end of the update PR would be updated.
............

That's it in a nutshell. As a webmaster, once you started to understand that cycle Google became a lot less intimidating, as you could fairly predict what was happening with your listings.

In about the last three months G has made some major changes. A Google representative has confirmed that we won't likely see activity from the former deepbot IP range.. ie, Googlebot will be coming from a 64.*** address. Basically they are moving towards a rolling update. At this it is still unclear quite what the new cycle is, but I expect it to be a much more Freshy-type behaviour, with pages entering the index within days of spidering (and presumably staying in the index, as there will be no deep crawl to cement them). The bigger mystery is probably how will PR be handled.. it hasn't been reliable since the new system started, and it is unclear quite what current PR is based on for and how often/when it will be updated.

It's all a bit exciting really.

.....

As to how I know all this... iffun I told ya, i'd have to shoot ya! j/k

I'm a member of another forum, which I won't mention here as I don't approve of cross-forum recruiting. It's a dedicated webmaster/SEO forum and the information above is from combined membership information and my experiene, backed up by my various sites' logs.

 

[ulteriormotif]

re fxcolin's posts... there do have a link on your logo back to your home page, which is quite adequate.

Novice users may not know that a home link is commonly placed on a logo, so an obvious text link might be helpful, but the link on the logo is quite adequate for search engines. (nb: text link or alt text on the image link will be even more helpful to users given that those using XP don't see the status bar by default).

Although internal pages to a site do have a certain level of 'intrinsic' PR, they will have a very minimal effect on PR within the site. I find it is helpful to think in terms of you ACQUIRE PR from external incoming links... and DISTRIBUTE PR with internal links.

The long and the short of it is go get those external incoming links.

 

[JoJoH]

Ulteriormotif: Thanks for the info and advice! Talking about getting external incoming links, according to your experience, is it easy? Do you just write a nice email to them asking them if they could link to you and that's it? Do you usually have to link back? Please advice, thanks again for your help!

Fxcolin:Thanks for the info!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com