Lost page rank, am I in the sandbox?

[onurkiyak]

Hi,

Our page rank was 5 for the last 3 months. Before it was 4 for a long time. Today our page rank dropped to 0 and I have no idea why.. We didn't buy any links or did anything wrong..

I also checked every keyword rankings we are on but we didn't loose our spot in any keyword..

Is it a short term thing, or am I in the sandbox? How can I fix this problem or avoid from a worse situation..?

www.gourmetmarketing.net

• We just changed the site template few times in last two months..

Thanks

[onurkiyak]

Thanks a lot. It is a relief.

[onurkiyak]

Nice Article. Thanks for the advice.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Onur

That's good to hear.  My only concern is the perception that your "google rank" was affected somehow.

It's not your google rank. It's a publicly shared generalized numeric value Google puts out for curious onlookers.  It's not based in reality.

[onurkiyak]

Alan,

thanks for the info. We didn't loose any traffic. Everything looks fine except our google rank.

[bemcapaz]

If you were in the sandbox you would have no doubt about it, hehe

The truth is, when you get sandboxed you can expect a drop around 90% (if not 100%) of your visits from organic Google, thats the stat you look to check if it has happened or not

[Thos003]

My tool shows you with a PR=3 ... Not quite a 5 but much better than zero. I don't think you are in the sandbox. Just growing pains.

[netmkting]

Changing your site template should not have effected your page rank.  Matt Cutts from Google explains that page rank is a formula based on backlinks and the quality of them.

I wouldn't stress too much about your PR.  What matters the most is how well you are ranking.  If you haven't dropped in your keyword rankings, then you have not been sandboxed.  Just continue to focus on building quality backlinks.  Build your PR back up.

[AlanBleiweiss]

The "page rank" you refer to - is this the ToolBar PageRank?  If so, relax, take a step back and consider this:

1.  TBPR is an inaccurate indicator.

2. TBPR is not updated for months at a time, and thus does not reflect timely reality.

3. TBPR is irrelevant to professional SEO

4. You say you didn't lose any rankings

5. The real and only question that matters is this:

Did you see a dramatic drop in visits coming from organic search queries?