Google Backlink Updates: No Need for Panic - Timing of Backlink and PageRank Processing
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When are backlinks and PageRank really processed?
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.
When the backlinks are finally displayed, in the backlink update, they are already old news. Often, links will not show up in the backlink results for three to four updates. The average appearance time is usually two backlink updates, but it’s not unusual to see incoming links displayed in only one update.
The very inconsistency of the timing of display causes one to think that it’s perhaps intentional on the part of Google. Such an unpredictability would work to Google’s advantage, as it would prevent any manipulation of the timing of backlink displays. Of course, since the incoming links are likely calculated as they are added, the backlink display inconsistency is possibly planned to keep webmasters and SEO professionals off balance.
As most website owners are already aware, the backlink display doesn’t include the full array of incoming links to a website. In fact, according to Google, the display is only what is referred to as a sampling of backlinks. Many solid PageRank links are not shown at all. Some incoming links almost never seem to appear at all.
The incoming links shown are only those of PageRank 4 or higher in the vast majority of cases. There are some rare instances of a high PR3 page being displayed. That fact has led some SEO practitioners to believe, that Google also sorts backlinks, by the amount of PageRank being passed along to the receiving page. Should that be the case, then links from themed pages, and from pages with fewer outgoing links, should be more highly valued.
Like incoming links, Google PageRank is apparently calculated on an ongoing basis as well. The level of PageRank, shown by the green meter on the Google Toolbar is, at best an estimation. The true PageRank amount of any web page is only known to Google. As always, the search engine giant is very close mouthed about that information.
Since there are no degrees or gradations of PageRank, it’s impossible to tell if a PR5 is a high PR5 and closer to PR6, or if the true level is closer to a PR4. The easiest way to tell a more accurate gradation, is to examine your internal web pages. If they have a PageRank similar to the main feeder page, then your PageRank is nearer to the higher end of the scale for that level.
What seems to be the case, is that the estimated PageRank is only displayed after the fact. The actual PageRank is ahead of the Google Toolbar display. The PageRank update only gets the Toolbar shown PageRank more in line with the actual PageRank level.
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