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Does anyone know what's going on with this July PR update? In the past, backlinks and PR were updated together. That doesn't seem to be the case this time. Not only that, I've heard some mention of a few sites fluctuating in PR lately in addition to some previously PR0 and new sites gaining PR. Anyone care to guess when the PR update will come? Or has the dreaded G decided to skip out on us this month!

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Dani AI

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Short version: toolbar PageRank and the backlinks shown by Google are two different public signals — neither is a live “truth” of your ranking. Google discovers links continuously when its crawlers visit pages; the effect of a newly discovered link can show in rankings as soon as that crawl and re‑index happen. The toolbar PR is a separate, rounded snapshot that Google publishes only occasionally, and the link: operator has always returned a sampled subset — so mismatches between rank movement, link: results, and toolbar PR are normal.

Practical checklist to diagnose whether a new link is actually working for you:

  1. Confirm the link is present and crawlable (no rel="nofollow", page isn’t blocked by robots or meta noindex).
  2. Check crawl activity — server logs or Google Search Console URL Inspection show whether Googlebot fetched the linking page.
  3. If it hasn’t been crawled, request indexing or wait; if it has, expect ranking effects to follow indexing (sometimes within hours, sometimes days).
  4. Use analytics/referrer data and a rank tracker to correlate traffic and keyword movement rather than relying on toolbar PR or link: results.

Why internal links or familiar backlinks disappear from link: or why PR doesn’t change: link: is a sampled view and the toolbar shows a rounded score produced in batch. They’re useful as rough signals, not authoritative counters. Focus on crawlability, anchor relevance, diversity of referring domains, and on-page quality.

This explains what and observed (rank change before public backlink listings) and clarifies ’s correction about PageRank origins. Ignore short-term toolbar swings and the PR‑for‑sale game: verify links are indexed and let real ranking data — not the toolbar — guide decisions.

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Member Avatar for mnemtsas

Does anyone know what's going on with this July PR update? In the past, backlinks and PR were updated together. That doesn't seem to be the case this time. Not only that, I've heard some mention of a few sites fluctuating in PR lately in addition to some previously PR0 and new sites gaining PR. Anyone care to guess when the PR update will come? Or has the dreaded G decided to skip out on us this month!

Interestingly the way backlinks are shown in Google seems to have changed completely. All my internal links have disappeared from the link: search and a ton of <PR4 links have shown up. Looks like the old back link must be PR4 or greater to count might be dead.

My PR has stayed the same too. I think it's largely eye candy anyway. The last few updates showed absolutely no change in SERPS on the day of the update, but rather a gradual thing as I did my SEO. A good example of this is a PR7 link I picked up had a big effect on my SERPS a couple days after it was posted, and a few days later when the Google BL update happened I saw no change in SERPS.

Cheers,

Member Avatar for Dani

Check out this thread = [thread]8160[/thread]

So you're saying that lets say on Monday I get a new backlink from a high PR site. By that Friday, my ranking in the SERPS will reflect this? Even though the backlinks shown on link:www.daniweb.com aren't recalculated yet? That would be cool if it's true!

Member Avatar for ewokforhire

My PR has stayed the same too. I think it's largely eye candy anyway. The last few updates showed absolutely no change in SERPS on the day of the update, but rather a gradual thing as I did my SEO.
Cheers,

"Whenever your site adds a new incoming link, Google will find it when its spider crawls your site. That link will be calculated at the time of its indexing. The link will provide its link boost to your site in the search engine rankings upon its discovery. What that means, in simple terms, is by the time the actual backlinks are displayed by Google, the links have already had their values included in the search calculations."

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google/Google-Backlink-Updates-No-Need-for-Panic/2/

Member Avatar for Dani

Definitely something I didn't know. Thanks for that :)

Member Avatar for mnemtsas

ewokforhire is correct. PR is eye candy and updates seem to have nothing to do with updating SERPS any longer.

Member Avatar for Dani

Thanks for that. So I guess the PR toolbar's functionality is limited to getting webmasters to believe your site is worthy of having their link on it?

Member Avatar for mnemtsas

I think you're absolutely correct. In 12 months I didn't get one request for a link, but when I put up a links page and it hit PR4 hey presto, three requests in the first week.

I think also it helps to keep the 'my PR is bigger than yours' element entertained. But that's more of a side effect than a reason to have it. :mrgreen:

Member Avatar for Dani

What you guys are saying seems to be making sense. Diminishing the true value of the google toolbar's PR definitely goes with Google's plans to eliminate the buying and selling of PR for PR's sake.

Member Avatar for Arizona Web

hey Dani... PR is poop! :p

neener neener neeeeener!!

Member Avatar for Dani

Ok there Arizona Web, I digress. ;)

Member Avatar for I, Brian

PR has certainly been a marketing score for Google, but as mentioned after the Florida update, Google may well be tryig to wean themselves off it for ranking purposes - Stansted Uni actually holds the patent for that, not Google, and it could only make shareholders nervous to think if Stansted could ransom Google for it. Ergo, Google will diminish their reliance on PR for practical purposes - though for the meanwhile, exploiting PR for marketing purposes.

Member Avatar for Dani

Stansted U.? What's that? I thought Google started at Standford?

Member Avatar for I, Brian

LOL! My bad, yes - it's Standford that own the PageRank alog, and Google lease the rights to use it from them. Standsted, of course, is an airport here in England. :)

I thought something didn't look right. :)

Member Avatar for wyrickj

Yea my backlinks went funny too and PR stayed the same. I talked with SEO Guy and told him to tell Google to get there butts working again at fixing the problem as SEO Guy is at the Googleplex this week. I wish I could go.

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