My website has a page rank of zero on Google and I can't understand
why.  I'd love to be getting google traffic, but currently am only
getting google traffic when I pay for keywords.  The site url is
patioandhomefurniture.com.  I would appreciate knowing google's
objection to the site so that I can fix it.  Thank you, Dave Mason

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Request for Question Clarification by robertskelton-ga on 24 Jun 2003 15:52 PDT

Did you submit your site to Google?
://www.google.com/addurl.html

If so, how long ago?

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Clarification of Question by crunchyguy-ga on 24 Jun 2003 16:40 PDT

I did not formally submit the site to Google, but that does not appear
to be the issue.  In the past I have never submitted my site to them
and they always pick it up of their own accord.  I have links going to
the site, I have it in the Yahoo and Looksmart directories, and
whenever I search for the URL on Google they always seem well aware of
the site, have a number of links to the site, and have cached versions
of the site.  I think it is more of a content based issue.

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Request for Question Clarification by robertskelton-ga on 24 Jun 2003 17:03 PDT

PageRank of zero is indicated by a white bar, and usually means you
have done something wrong. A grey bar usually means that Google has
not indexed the site, and does not denote a penalty.

I notice that the link from Yahoo is directed at:
http://www.patioandhomefurniture.com

With the "www" in the URL, your site has a PR of 1.

Do you know what other sites are linking to yours?

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Clarification of Question by crunchyguy-ga on 24 Jun 2003 17:32 PDT

Other than the Yahoo and Looksmart listings and paid advertisements
through Google and Overture (which I've temporarily suspended), the
only site that I know of that links to mine is
www.virtuallyignorant.com.

Hi,

As I mentioned in the clarification above, your site has a PR of 1, if
the "www" is included in the URL. The three sites that link to you all
point to:
http://www.patioandhomefurniture.com/

There are no links to http://patioandhomefurniture.com/ which is why
the PR comes up as blank. Google has a tendency to treat subdomains as
seperate entities, and the www is technically a subdomain.

PR1 is pretty much the lowest you can get, and reflects that fact that
the only links that point to your site are either paid for (Looksmart
and Yahoo) or part of a link exchange:
http://www.virtuallyignorant.com/linkexchange.htm

If you participated in more link exchanges, I would expect your site
to get the dreaded PR0. Google frowns upon them amongst other things.
It is important that you read all of Google's webmaster guidelines:
://www.google.com/webmasters/

Get rid of the link exchange, and get a few genuine links pointing to
your site (Open Directory should be your first mission), and you
should get at least a PR of 4.

Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga

I gave you a page rank for the (www.)and it looks like you have 3 now...

Yes, thank you.  I guess I just should have shown a bit more patience.
 What I thought was a specific objection to my site was probably only
the normal course of business for Google and they just hadn't gotten
to ranking it yet.  It's nice of you to check back and follow up on
the progress of my site.  All the best, Dave