Google update! Higher pageranks for vBSEO'd urls

I'm seeing significant Google pagerank improvements on my site after the recent update. Specifically, vBSEO'd forum urls are getting much higher pageranks. Forum urls are typically PR0 or PR1. Now, I'm seeing my forum thread pages as high as PR4.

I thought I'd try to collect some data from other vBSEO'ers (and brag a little too ).

What pageranks are you seeing for your forum thread pages? Have you also noticed a rise in overall pagerank or thread pagerank?

What's the highest pagerank of a single vBSEO'd forum url on your site?

What's the highest pagerank of a single vBSEO'd forum url on your site?

Is there an easy way to find that out?

I have seen an AMAZING result in this latest update, most of my "main" pages have resulted in PR3 from PR0, and I believe I have seen a PR3 thread..

Originally Posted by kall

Is there an easy way to find that out?

I have seen an AMAZING result in this latest update, most of my "main" pages have resulted in PR3 from PR0, and I believe I have seen a PR3 thread..

Same here really although i havent checked too much into the thread PRs as of yet.

We've got 5 and 6 without vBSEO - but this Google 'Jagger' update is going to be more than just getting higher PR.

Many 'optimised' sites are getting a real kicking with higher PR, but far less traffic.

Originally Posted by xsimple

Many 'optimised' sites are getting a real kicking with higher PR, but far less traffic.

Exactly, it's the traffic that matters, not PR.

It's just a guess, but this update sounds like it's gonna hit websites involved with reciprocal linking.

Time to pray folks!

@SEO Report:

So, link farms might be in big trouble?

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

@SEO Report:

So, link farms might be in big trouble?

Seriously, GoogleGuy clearly indicated that sites involved with reciprocal linking were going to be penalized (I can't find the exact URL/posts, sorry)

Matt Cutts said in his blog that G is able to recognize reciprocal/bought text links

True or not, I like Nick W's comment on this:

If you have to ask for links, you're not working hard enough.

Very well said. I couldn't agree more...

It is going to be extremely difficult for Google to detect advanced link trading/purchasing networks as the strategies become more advanced.

Therefore, while the goal of limiting the algo to pure natural link building is a good idea, it is not likely to come to fruition (at least not very easily).

I think one can reasonably predict that other detection mechanisms will begin to play a larger role (rate of content/link growth, click throughs monitored via Google Toolbar, etc) in the near future (if not right now).

Whatever mechanisms they put in place, I'm sure the blackhat community will try to find a way to exploit it, so perhaps strategies such as Google sandboxing for new sites along with enforcing a larger time period between applying a new algorithm and showing its effects will be put in place to limit the blackhats ability to manipulate the SERPs in a way that is non-beneficial to web surfers seeking pure search results.

Fortunately for Google, this is only really an 80/20 problem. Since the top 10 search engine positions are the most highly sought after & generate the majority of web traffic, it is feasible for human reviewers to adjust the SERPs manually. Applying the 80/20 principle *generically*, one might suggest:

- The top 20% of all search queries generate 80% of total searching activity.
- Sites in the top 20% of SERP listings capture 80% of Google generated web traffic.

In that case, the reviewers can have a huge impact by focusing on the top 20% of most popular keywords, in perhaps pages (1-2) of the SERPs.

That, in combination with monitoring "time to return to Google from a listing click" would be very effective in rapidly cleansing the top results of any blackhat listings that are not relevant enough to be there. Note: If a user returns to Google quickly after visiting a website, it is a good indication that they did not find the site relevant to their query.

Note: If anyone has more precise statistics, please post)

Pareto's Law is everywhere on the net. A similar discussion applying it to forum content is here.

20% of keywords is still too resource-intensive for Google to adjust manually. It's not scalable. Although, I do remember a while back how a large network of human Google reviewers was made public.

The problem with blackhatting is that you have to always stay ahead of the curve, and ahead of Google. Once a new blackhat technique hits the mainstream, Google mobilizes resources to defend their algo against it, and to punish the offenders. If you're churning out a couple million new Viagra sites per update, this isn't a big problem. If you're running an online community, which is dependent on long-term growth and branding, then you're in trouble. By the time a new blackhat technique is being widely discussed in the online communiverse, it's too late to use it safely.

Agreed -- the "naturality" of a link is extremely difficult to detect. A link is a representation of a relationship. As with any relationship, it's often impossible to determine whether it was established on merit, or established for mutual gain.

This is why I like vBSEO so much. Ultimately, it will fall under the eyes of a Google blackhat-catcher, and he will simply say: "oh, cool, now it's easier for us to spider these content-rich sites."

kall -- you can check PR with a Google API key, but you're limited to 1,000 queries/day. Extract the 1,000 threads with the greatest number of views; those are probably the most likely to have the highest PR's. Then, just run them through a command line rank checker; order by PR.

2 weeks running vbseo and I have gone from 0 PR to 2 PR across the board...woo hoo!! I'm groovin on vbseo

Great input Jonathan.

FYI I am glad we are a whitehat team. It makes the task a lot easier.

We've only run vBSEO for three days so too early - but the last Google update has thrashed our site completely. We fell from #4 to #200 for "science forums". Almost all of our Google traffic is gone. So PR is not worth much to us (our front page has 6, index has 5, lots of sections 4 or 5). :(

It's not due to vbSEO, it's due to the changes Google made, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

It's not due to vbSEO, it's due to the changes Google made, unfortunately.

Oh, I know that. We started dropping a week before we bought vBSEO. But it's still a PITA.

...not to mention that half our income is disappearing, too...

We still have 325K pages indexed, and some 35K vbseo pages, so maybe when all the seo'd pages are indexed we'll start climbing again.

Good numbers there.