Google Page Rank Misrepresentation
Until this weekend, Reward Rebel blog displayed a button declaring a Google Page Rank of 2, however, I’ve discovered that I’m guilty of misrepresentation and – worse – that this blog doesn’t have a Google Page Rank at all!
My apologies for this error, which occurred because I was deploying a URL redirect from /blog/ and it is the root domain rewardrebel.com that has the Google Page Rank 2. I had developed a habit of always using rewardrebel.com to direct to the blog and when I used the Page Rank Checker Tool, I automatically entered the root domain URL.
There are many web pages hosted on rewardrebel.com and they are all independent sales pages - there isn’t a website as such on that domain name. The domain was about six months old when I started the Reward Rebel blog, and it’s URL is rewardrebel.com/blog.
I thought I’d make it easier for people to remember the blog name and address if it was simply rewardrebel.com, so I used the redirect.
My knowledge about links, site authority and Google Page Rank was pretty basic, and it didn’t occur to me that what I was doing harboured intricacies that could spawn problems for me further down the line.
Having become further and further embroiled in the development of my blogs, I was pretty oblivious to anything awry until a couple of months ago. I realised that two sets of stats existed on Technorati - one for rewardrebel.com and one for rewardrebel.com/blog – both relating to the same articles!
After some lengthy email correspondence with a guy from Technorati Support – who was incredibly helpful and the experience was much easier and non-techy than I’d have expected – it was recommended that I use rewardrebel.com for my blog address and dispense with /blog, but that was suggested without him knowing that I have many files and folders on rewardrebel.com, even though there isn’t an actual reward rebel website.
I requested that Technorati merge the two sets of stats, but they couldn’t do that, so it was agreed to delete the rewardrebel.com stats, leaving rewardrebel.com/blog. Of course, this didn’t resolve the main problem, and a second set of stats soon began to generate again.
The redirect has now been removed, and I’m still finding instances of the root URL being promoted on my sales pages, where it should be /blog, but I’ll get through them all eventually.
If you consider using a URL redirect, bear in mind that Google and Google Page Rank does not like redirects, and your site’s Technorati Authority will be weakened by being divided between two URLs – although perhaps there’s a way around this that I’m unaware of. No doubt, redirects impact in all sorts of ways I’ve not mentioned (or yet discovered!) and your input here could be very helpful, both for myself and people reading this.
I’ll not be deploying URL redirects again in a hurry… if ever! At the time, it seemed so perfectly straightforward… (cue maniacal laughter fading into the distance).
Layne | Reward Rebel
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Filed under Domains, Google Page Rank, Websites |
You can consider yourself forgiven, my daughter
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RewardRebel Reply:
October 13th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Aw, a man with a big heart!
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Hmm, I dunno if we should be so quick to forgive…somethin’ be fishy here…..
She has a 0, promotes a 2 and claims riches with how to gain a PR 3 on yet ANOTHER blog!
Hehe
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RewardRebel Reply:
October 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Yep, immaculate timing, eh?
It was you having mentioned that you were seeing PR0 that started me investigating, so I dunno whether to thank you or hate you!
Oh, and I’m still waiting for the riches….
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Hate me, it keeps ‘em comin back more then love
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Hi Reward Rebel,
Frankly Layne, I hadn’t noticed it at all. It does not mean much to me what the page rank is or what the traffic rank numbers are. To me it is the post and the person that counts. Perhaps part of it is because I don’t use the blog for selling.
Whatever it is, I believe it’s an honest mistake, not a deliberate misrepresentation. I could never think of you as a misrepresenter of anything. Those who have been in contact with you for some time know the fact that you’ve been working on these things like tweaking and such things, on your own. Errors are therefore to be expected, not being a techie.
The post is very informative and provides insights into the workings of the Gods of the internet. I know these things are important for you as it affects your objectives for the site, so give it careful attention.
We make mistakes, but we are NOT mistakes. Take care and have a nice day. And for those who think this was deliberate or something similar - sorry for your misjudgment - you have just committed a big mistake.
–Durano, done!
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RewardRebel Reply:
October 15th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Nice to hear from you again, D, and I appreciate your trust. Ya know, it’s just as well I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for when I started all this online malarky… I’d have never ventured in. That said, I do really enjoy a sense of accomplishment each time I make a breakthrough in my mastery of it all.
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Ut oh….i get the feeling that others besides you RR might not have sensed my sarcasm…
I was just busting her chops! She is in no way a scammer
Now I feel better
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RewardRebel Reply:
October 16th, 2008 at 1:15 am
When you know what you’re talking about and from what perspective, it’s easy not to notice how the intended meaning could be misinterpreted, but in this case I’m sure no-one thinks you were being horrid to lil ol’ me.
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“I’m sure no-one thinks you were being horrid to lil ol’ me. ;-)”
OH OH bravo! My hats off to a truly ingenious segway into the “sweet little girl” routine.
Well done
lol
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I don’t care about the PR of the blogs I visit or comment on. What matters is the content. The PR checker may at times be delayed in the update. sometimes a day or two. But as to redirects, I have no idea as to how it is done.
As to the PR, i think it is easier to get a PR3 for a new blog than to regain the PR3 of a penalized blog.
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Hi Layne,
Michael here.
Imagine how free you could feel and how much you could enjoy Crete without reasoning about your PageRank …*-)
IMHO it’s time we people come to our senses.
Do we really want to be SEO-Slaves and write for the search engines.
I don’t. I’m human. And frankly, i have enough of all this SEO-nonsense.
Tell you what. all the engines, including big G. can kiss my butt at midnight …lol.
I want to express my thoughts and my feelings on my blog. I care for human readers, not for software bots.
And by the way, when it come to Marketing: ever sold something to a search engine?
So: after the PageRank was gone, they lived happily ever after …*-)
Cheers,
Michael
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Hi! I enjoy visiting your blog and I’ve just given you an award!
All the best!
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RewardRebel Reply:
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Sorry, I’m a bit behind with my comments checking!
Thank you very much for the award, I’m delighted that you enjoy visiting the ol’ rebel.
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Oh so sorry to hear that my Friend. Never mind you have readers that love your blog!
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According to my Google toolbar http://rewardrebel.com/blog has a PR of 1.
Welcome back to the PageRanked.
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RewardRebel Reply:
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Oh, gawd blimey, oh riley, guvnor, so it has! Yippee, that’s a nice surpise.
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Didn’t know the guys at Technorati really answer e-mails… I wished the Google WebSiteOptimizer team do that as well… I don’t even find a place where to contact them!
Help…
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RewardRebel Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I was pretty impressed with the Technorati response!
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