3 weeks after PR8 is Implemented

[consumers]

I recently Received a PR-8 Backlink from  a very authorative site. Its been 3 weeks now and it seems ALL my rankings are actually down .As i continue to check my rankings for the top 10 keys every day,I see the ranks jumping from 09 down to 42 and back up to 09,This is every day it seems the last week ...It just seems that in 3 weeks the bouncing would stop by now. The keyword i am speaking of actually gets about 250,000 searches a month. Prior to the pr 8 link i was solid at #11 Google. BUT now im at #12 - #13..Does anyone think that maybe something else is going on here??

[RyanKent]

In my experience most people are completely disillusioned on the idea of link building. There are sites with literally millions of links to them. You earned ONE link. It sounds like a great link, but there are many questions here:

• Many people claim to receive a PR8 link because the home page of the site they received the link from is PR8. The question to ask is, what is the PR of the actual page from which you received the link?

• What kind of link is it? Is the link contained within content? For example, a blog article written about a topic which mentioned your site? That would be a quality link. Or is it a footer link or other low value link?

• How many links are on the page? Each additional link on the page lessens the value of your link.

• What page of your site does this link target? The benefit would be highest for the keyword or phrase which the target page focuses upon.

• Is there anchor text used for the link? Or is it a straight web address?

If you can share the page with the link, we can evaluate it and offer better feedback. There are some people who have received a "PR10" link which offered absolutely no value because while the site's home page is PR10, the linking page is PR0 because it is not ever crawled since it is buried so deep.

Link building is a long term process. The key factor when you wish to rank for a given work or phrase is your competition. It is fantastic earning a PR8 link, and it will offer a positive contribution to your site if it is indeed really a quality PR8 link, but the benefit is not necessary visible in terms of "well I ranked as #11 before the link, and now I jumped to #7". It can possibly work that way but that is more common for newer sites with few links competing on a less competitive keyword.

[KyleJohnson40]

It's normal for a site's keyword rankings to bounce around (or do the 'Google Dance') after receiving a lot of new new links (or a few very authoritative ones). Without knowing more, I'd say that you're probably just witnessing the various components of the ranking system at work. The volatility seems to correspond with the amount of new data the ranking system has to process - I've seen a page that had sat at #3 for a year fall to the 400's for a couple of days after a successful social campaign that resulted in hundreds of links and tweets, only to return at #1 and hold steady ever since.

So If it does not improve, the appropriate reaction is to just proceed with you link building plan. Social signals are important for validating an unusual pattern in link building (for your site/niche), so make sure you're addressing that and you should be fine.

[consumers]

The link is actually located on the home page with an actual PR8 rank

The link is for the pretty competitive term of about 250,000 searches per month

The link is not surrounded by text instead it is listed mid page as a contributor to the site with anchor text for my main keyword..

I have been working on this site for a total of 3 years im only now getting to #11 position...

Every time i get close THE #1,#2and #3 competitor starts  HUGE link campaigns and adds hundreds and hundreds of links at a time...AGAIN pushing me down ...

Can i push as hard as they are ??OR do i need to be patient and just keep moving ahead slowly As i am now??

thank You

[RyanKent]

The link being on the home page is fantastic! My concern is the "contributor" listing. Google's algorithms should automatically devalue any sponsored links. I would say the popular belief amongst SEOs is contributor links still pass PR but I have not seen any form of confirmation from Google on this topic, and I doubt we will. The link may or may not actually offer any direct value.

Either way, I would recommend continuing with business as normal. Continue to build and grow your site with quality link building techniques.

Can i push as hard as they are ??OR do i need to be patient and just keep moving ahead slowly As i am now??

SEO ranking is purely a competition. How much effort (i.e. links, quality content, etc) you put into your site is all relative to the actions of others competing for the same traffic. Without seeing the sites involved I can only speak in generalities. If you have multiple competitors spending money on quality SEO efforts, it is a link war. Your choice is to fight harder which usually means spending more money, or fight smarter by focusing on long tail content or spending your money and time on other efforts.

[ShaMenz]

Hi Robert,

Great answers here already, but I just wanted to perhaps give a little different perspective on your problem...

I know it is very frustrating to see what is happening, but I would be focusing on traffic and conversions rather than rankings. In the end, if you have a home page link embedded in body copy on a high authority site, it is quite possible that you will see an increase in traffic from referrals. If this were me I could care less about a couple of ranking positions!

With the effects of localization and personalization on today's SERPs, it is impossible to know exactly what result each person sees anyway.

Also, have you checked whether the link is followed? If it is not, then the effect upon your site won't be as great as you expected, but the potential for referrals is still enormous

Hope this helps,

Sha

[AlanMosley]

3 weeks is not that long, although a pr8 site would get crawled quite oten you would think.

I have found that Googel has become very slow at awarding juice of late. I know that WMT is not the same thing, but that can sometimes be months behind.

there is nothing wrong with being a contributer link in itself, rather are you contributing to a site that is relevant to yoursite

[consumers]

Thank you all very much...My traffic and conversions actually has been quite awesome for the last 12 months..Good enough that this site is the sole support of my family and 7 kids.

Again i wouldnt be here where i am today if it was not for yhou guys..