Almost 3 months after the last update, Google has just updated PageRank once again earlier today. And before that was the update in August, it seems like Google is trying to come back to its update cycle of 3 months like it did in the past.
This is a very important update for webmasters and bloggers because it has happened at a sensitive time, after many websites (including mine) were affected by Google Panda’s changes such as the Google freshness algorithm or above the fold/page layout algorithm update. Specifically, the TechWalls’ traffic dropped by 50% after the updates and I struggled to reach milestones in 2011. This also led to a significant decrease in my monthly revenue from Adsense as well because the Adsense income is directly proportional to the traffic. However, my overall online earnings are still increasing consistently as I always try to diversify revenue sources. SocialSpark and Teliad made up the decreased revenue from Adsense and helped boost my earnings last month.
Gaining PR4, Easy or Difficult?
Back to the main topic, I was notified the new Google PR update earlier and that’s a major update. I have checked all of my websites and there have been some changes. Unfortunately, the TechWalls blog could not reach the new Pagerank this time, its PR still remains at PR3. Although this site didn’t make progress, I am still happy because at least Google did not degrade my site after recent algorithm update. Besides, this is also explainable as getting PR4 is much more difficult than gaining PR1, PR2 or Pr3. It requires serious link building strategies to reach PR4 whereas I could not invest much time and money to my blog in the last few months.
The quantity of backlinks is not an important factor to get higher PageRank. I read somewhere that to gain PR4, we will need 3055 backlinks from PR1 sites or 555 PR2 or 101 PR3 or 18 PR4 or 3 PR5 or 1 PR6/7/8/9/10. This is just a reference and I am not sure if it is true. I think it will also depend on the relevancy of those backlinks, the backlink could only be counted when the content is relevant. So the quality of backlinks is essential to increase PR and the best way to get high quality links is developing great content or products. For example, when you have a great post with unique idea or you give away a free WordPress theme, people will appreciate them and give credit to your content. Once again, Content is King. A few days ago, Emmanuel Banks, our awesome writer, had a blog post on Blogger’s Guide to Keywords and this has drawn some backlinks from high PR blogs, one of them is PR6. Therefore, if the above formula is true, I can expect TechWalls will get PR4 in the next update (probably in June!?).
I am not an expert in Google PageRank, so I do not know more ways to increase PR. If you have any experience in gaining high PR or ever own a PR4 website, please share with us below.
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David says
Thanks for the info. I also have a blog that’s stuck on PR3. Are you sure the update has ended? It sometimes takes a long time.
Tuan Do says
Yes, David. I checked some info and saw that the PageRank was updated on all Google data centers. I guess both of our blogs still need to wait for more 3 months to get higher PR.
Paul Salmon says
So far, it looks like my blog’s PageRank didn’t change. Ah well, I am not too concerned. The only thing I have found PR to be good for is advertising, which is helpful to diversify my blog’s income.
Tuan Do says
Hi Paul,
It seems quite difficult to break the PR4 milestone. PR probably doesn’t have impact on search engine ranking but I think the number is extracted periodically from the Google’s internal PageRank and this is an important ranking factor. So, I can have peace in mind when the PR stays the same or gets higher.
Besides, this is very important for advertiser and text link networks to determine the price, we can earn some more money from them with high PR as you mentioned.
Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com says
I’m still on PR4 as well and yes, it’s really hard to break that PR3 barrier. I got lucky, I didn’t do any backlinking work at all. Seems that some official brand websites link to my review posts and some of them must have got a good PR
Tuan Do says
Hi Michael. So CravingTech hasn’t reached PR5 after 1 year?
Writing sponsored posts is a great way to build backlinks, and we can got some more money at the same time. My site also received some backlinks but it seems like the brands are too small to get effects on Google PR.
Btw, when will you write reviews on Samsung’s phones? I check your site some time but couldn’t see them.
Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com says
:( ow, you’re right, I did promise that. Reviewing phones takes a lot of effort and time, so I always procrastinated, oops
But I thought you are already happy with your GALAXY Note? :)
Tuan Do says
Yeah, there is nothing to complain about the Galaxy Note, that’s the best Android phone I’ve ever used. I am just curious and want to know other users’ opinions on this phone. :D
Yordan Dimitrov says
Great article! I learned things that I never knew before. Thank you for sharing this informative article with us!
PrIyAnGsHu @ GeekyTricks.Com says
Yeah, it’s a major PR update and this time my blog has been rewarded with PR 2, although it’s just a 1 month old domain ! I can’t say that only backlinks can boost up our pagerank, proper content and proper on page SEO also matters a lot !
Tuan Do says
Yes, that’s really strange. Are you sure that content and on-page SEO could affect PR?
PrIyAnGsHu @ GeekyTricks.Com says
I’m also confused because it has taken me around 7 months to get PR 2 for my previous, and I’m now pretty amazed to see that this new domain has gotten PR 2 within 1 month although I did not build much backlinks for this domain. That’s why, I’m guessing that it’s only because of my content and due to strong on site SEO !
Suraj @Smartfatblogger says
Hi, Thanks for sharing this wonderful article. It helped me gain a lot of info.
Bloomtools says
Yes i actually find it difficult when i saw my sit PR increased that how hard work is done to increase PR and one single update of google can change everything.
Amelia's Dog Walking says
Watch this space PR1 in next 2 months, pr2 month after and pr3 month after at least, within 9 -12 months pr4. hey if you want give me a hand give me a hand (or a link :P ) lol in fact that would be greatly appreciated any links people can add. Some seo guy told me its impossible for me to rank no1 for “dog walking melbourne” and im trying to teach myself how to do this so any pointers or help would be great. you can send me a message through the contact on my site if you like.
sai krishna says
very nice explanation brother :) if you have any idea of next PR update ?
Tuan Do says
I think Google will keep the update cycle and the next update probably could happen this June. Just my guess :)
Raphael Card says
My page rank didn’t change but my keyword rankings fell. I think some of my old links are now longer there and may have been the reason. I guess back to the backlink grind!
Brian D. Hawkins says
Hi Tuan, for the most part Hot Blog Tips was unaffected by this latest update. We’re still a PR3 on the home page. We actually has a few PR4 internal pages for a while, which I thought was unusual for a PR3 blog, but Google seems to have made a correction and those pages have been reduced to PR2 and PR3s.
According to Google Webmaster tools we have 12,889 total links with 6,911 linking to the index page so I’m not too sure about the number of links it takes to achieve PR4, or what other factors are involved.
Tuan Do says
Yes, Brian.
We can see thousands of links to our websites in Google Webmaster Tools, but majority of them are probably nofollow links or from article directories. Even when our site gets backlink from a high profile website, the link juice will also be divided based on the number of outbound links there. I also heard that links within the main content have higher weight than links in comment or sidebar sections. So, I guess just some of them are high quality links.
Chintan Jain says
Strong Link Building is the only key to get good PR..
Puneet says
I think relevant links plays important role. But I am confused about the Google PR update. I heard from a guy that he has no content on a new blog and Google blessed him with PR 2.
Tuan Do says
Yes, Puneet. Sometimes it happens.
There are many similar cases and I assume those are Google’s mistakes. I myself had a new blog with just one blog post and no link building effort, somehow it managed to get PR3 in the November update, however, it has been dropped to PR0 now. So, we shouldn’t depend on only the PageRank to valuate a website.
Puneet says
I think the main thing is traffic. traffic matters.
Salman says
No changes for my blog…But I agree with you, its not easy to get PR 4
Bella Rossi says
I am Pr 3 within 3 weeks with 21 links from average sites ….I will try for pr 4 this month and let you know how i do.
thanks for the info!
Tuan Do says
Thanks mate, I’m looking forward to your good news.
Online Payday Advances says
I used to think that getting page rank is easy but reading this article i have got to know it’s though to get page rank PR4.I’ll also try this formula to get higher page rank.Thanks for sharing important information.
Tuan Do says
Yes, it is not easy to get high PR because there is not an exact formula for it. The easiest way to get PR in my view is investing time and money on building links.
1lear says
True it is very hard to gain Pr 4 , even Pr 3 can be quite difficult to achieve. Things you must do are the things you read constantly.
You must create good content
Keep it FRESH
Write about things your audience is looking for.
**Create a Google Webmasters Account and this will show you things you need to do to your sites to make them Google Friendly*
Make content other sites want to link too.
Increase your exposure by publicizing your site on Social Mediums.
Make it easy for your visitors to return by offering Rss feeds and Email Subscriptions.
One Day you WILL reach your goals if you stay motivated..
Samrat Kafle says
Yeah Tuan you are very true now the algorithm has changed really backlink is not only way to get high pagerank , there are other factors too like social sharing,bookmarking ha ha lots …anyway Tuan nice post.Keep blogging with the speed of light :)
Jose says
Hi Tuan and readers,”3 PR5 or 1 PR6/7/8/9/10″ It would be too easy if this were true :-) Indeed content is king, at least in my opinion. My blog has a PR4 for 2 years now and it’s getting quite difficult to reach 5, even if it shows several times on the first 10 results on certain Google, Yahoo and Bing searches.You may have a PR3, but you get lots of comments which is really good, afterall Pagerank is not everything.Best regards,José
Tuan Do says
Thanks for sharing your opinion, Jose.
I think that the PageRank we see doesn’t have much impact on search engine results. And you are right, the engagement of readers is more important than any ranking number. PR just has meaning in terms of advertising and selling links.
Thomas says
Hi Tuan
I was not aware of the Update this month, but I have seen a good increase in my incoming traffic from Google this month, maybe there is a connection there. However I am still a PR3 blog like you and I think that I will be that for a long time to come. When I look around at other great bloggers that have been around for years and still are stuck at PR3 I know that I have a long way to go to be a PR4 blog. On the other hand I am pretty happy with my progress of improved traffic month after month.
Tuan Do says
Hi Thomas,
As long as we are happy and have a great passion on blogging, the PR doesn’t really have much meaning. The success of a blog should be determined by its content, the engagement of readers and traffic it receives everyday.
Anyways, I am still expecting a higher PR in the next update. :)
[email protected] Tips says
I agree PR depends on the quality of links but this PR update was way too weird, I’ve noticed and analyzed many blogs achieving a high PR which have almost no backlinks, also I’ve seen a couple of domains getting a very high PR with very few links. Strange isn’t it? Hoping to see better results in the next PR update. Cheers :)
Tuan Do says
Yes, Sagar.
Those cases happen very often and I think they are mistakes from Google PR system. Some of my sites also received the gift from Google.The PR of those sites will be decreased in the later updates.
[email protected] Tips says
Yes I also have the same feeling, the PR of the such domains will be decreased in the next minor update.
Mike says
Not ultimately numbers of links will mean better pagerank nor better pagernak websites pointing to your site will give high pagerank. There are many unpredictable variables in Google PR algorithm that you can’t predict.
Once I registered 2 exact domain names(org and net) and used the same link building approaches while one site got PR1 the second one got PR4. So it’s like a bit of a gambling.
Free Documentaries says
I don’t think Google even knows what it is doing. I’ve watched authority sites go from a pr5 down to a pr2 in a update and at the same time watched scraped site with 100% duplicate content achieve a pr4. I think they just like to see us grovel.
Kashyap Joshi says
Hello Tuan,
Nice Post. I want to tell you that I am a new blogger. And my blog is 2 months old and my PR is 0. I think I need more than 3055 backlinks to get higher rank as you say.
Thanks for this cool info, It will helps me to get high PR of my blog.
Tuan Do says
Hi Kashyap,
It is not all about backlinks but the content of your blog as well. Don’t focus too much on building links as your blog is still young.
Kashyap Joshi says
OK. Thanks again Tuan.
Andrewth says
Hi Tuan,We were PR 2 as soon as we started doing link building ie, through Press releases, article post, blog post etc our PR increased. I feel getting to PR5 is tough!
WPTidBits says
Hi my site wptidbits.com was once PR4 last year until after the PR update you mentioned above. Sadly it decreased to PR3 after that. I understand it was because of many factors. In order to be more organized, getting more speed and future proof i had done few changes. One – changed my SEO plugins from AIO SEO to WPSEO from Yoast. Two – Too many permalinks changes just to get more organized for proper tagging and categorizing. Third – I opted using mediaqueries theme so that my site can be viewed in any resolutions.
Anyway its not bad after doing that so many changes. Until last year, i updated my posts about 2-3 article per month. Entering this year 2012, i became aggressively updating my posts 18-20 post per month. Just opening for guest posting, i expect the number of posts will be more.
If my guess is right, at next PR update, i should get at least PR5. And that is my current target. Anyway thanks for the info of your PR update.
Amit Shaw says
Getting PR5 Is too Tough… But Keep Try. Best Of Luck.
Alex Website says
Hi all…
I have a directory which is having a difficult time crossing the barrier to a PR4. An increase in PR for me is just a major milestone of self-confidence that hard work is paying off. Being stuck weighs on the psychology. And from my experience there is a positive correlation between PR and ranking. Especially if you have many individual pages in less competitive niches you will notice the higher trust in your URL. However, it is probably true: if you watch water reaching the boiling point, it just takes much longer. So do not watch your PR and live.
latest technews says
Yeah even my blog is stuck at Pr3 from quite some time, and in fact 7 of my blogs are @ Pr3, and Pr2, but my friend managed to get a Pr4 this time… These updates seem to be so random at times – and u definitely need some good luck, apart from some quality back-links :)
Rahul Kangjam says
now i know what the real matter is ,in order to get PR4 PR5 ! Thank for the shared ! hope i could improved some off which i learned from here
john says
I have been PR 3 since over 6 months. Increasing the numer of high pagerank backlink hasn’t got me to PR4 yet…. any suggestions?
Tuan Do says
It will take more high-quality links to get PR4, it’s not as easy as reaching PR3. I see many biogs with high traffic still remain at PR3 in the last few updates.
Anyways, don’t worry much about PR and concentrate on developing your site.
Steven says
My site have new pagerank after the update . now my pagerank is 1 . wow, what a great work to do
Cardinal says
Thanks for the useful information. Mine is a new site. Looking forward to crawl up…
Tony Teh says
Good post. Google’s algorithms is a mystery. We can all just predict. Hopefully I’ll gain PR3 back soon after going dot com recently.
H.M.Hasan says
How can I get PR4 education site back links.Please say me. I need its very much.
how to get my site on google says
I also heard that links within the main content have higher weight than links in comment or sidebar sections
Tuan Do says
That’s totally right. That’s why we need to build content to attract backlinks instead of buying links on sidebar, footer or spam commenting.
Durgesh says
My site has lost its PR1 and now it is on PR0 can anyone tell me the reasons and traffic is also got struck ed.
dora games says
google just update my page rank :) my new page ranak is 7
Tanmay Sawant says
Getting Good PR is very important .Now I’m currently at PR1.I hope to get atleast PR2 in the next update.Hope so !!
sanu francis dutta says
It is not that easy to get that quantity of links in meantime, while we are seeing Google panda update defects all the seo algorithms.
motaleb says
Hi dear my site is not get high PR why my site visitor huge and site seo well but it haven’t get expectation PR rank.