Caught domains staying at PR N/A - any ideas?

[jimnastics]

I'd appreciate any guidance chaps, as this is turning into an expensive joke, and I need to know if I'm just pissing money down the drain. So far, I've spent about £1000 on catching 20 dropped domains, Nominet transfers and hosting accounts over the last month or so. Every single one of these domains is still showing PR N/A. The earliest site has now been up over 3 weeks. Here's what I'm doing:

1. Catch dropped domain with public catcher (dropped domains always have PR N/A)
2. Nominet transfer to me, configure IP TAG and nameservers to hosting
3. Setup website, almost always Wordpress (within a week of the catch)
4. Add unique content (at best it's very, very loosely related to old site)
5. Sometimes: Ping site to various services to speed up indexing, if it doesn't index within a couple of day

This is for backlinking to use with my clients, so I can't submit to Google for fear of leaving a footprint across the sites.

18 of the 20 sites have pages indexed in Google. I take my backlink research seriously (mainly spyglass, majesticseo and OSE), and all domains have solid backlink profiles that should result in PR3+.

I come from a background of either building up domains or buying at auction with PR that stays, so this is a new area for me. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, or what to try next. I know that the link juice will be there on these already and PR isn't such a big deal these days, but most of my clients are so PR focused still, I need that PR to show in my reports to them.

Has anyone else experienced this with a lot of domains? Is there anything else I can try?

 

[AssetDomains]

Its strange I've picked one up the other day and it still holds PR3 rank.
Have your domains been in an extended period of suspension due to a hold being placed durring a period of adminstration or such.

 

[boxfish]

Has anyone else experienced this with a lot of domains? Is there anything else I can try?

If they weren't indexed when the last toolbar PR update happened then they will show as PR N/A - this doesn't mean they have lost all their pagerank - they will update in the future - they will still be passing pagerank though so don't worry about it.

 

[jimnastics]

Its strange I've picked one up the other day and it still holds PR3 rank.
Have your domains been in an extended period of suspension due to a hold being placed durring a period of adminstration or such.

I should have said these are all .uk domains, which of course go through the long 90 day dropping process before they can be caught. This means the vast majority have lost their toolbar pagerank in that period, and so drop to N/A well before being caught. In theory, the original PR should return... eventually.

When you says "holds PR3 rank", you mean the PR cam back from N/A instantly? Or you caught a domain which hadn't gone to N/A in the first place?

 

[jimnastics]

If they weren't indexed when the last toolbar PR update happened then they will show as PR N/A - this doesn't mean they have lost all their pagerank - they will update in the future - they will still be passing pagerank though so don't worry about it.

I was under the impression that a site will regain PR from N/A when it is live and has been indexed, sometimes just days after. So you're saying I might have to wait for the next update? Could be a while!

 

[boxfish]

I was under the impression that a site will regain PR from N/A when it is live and has been indexed, sometimes just days after. So you're saying I might have to wait for the next update? Could be a while!

If it was indexed when the last toolbar PR update happened then it will show straight away - if not you will have to wait.

s after. So you're saying I might have to wait for the next update? Could be a while!

Why do you need it to show toolbar PR? - You're links will still benefit from the ACTUAL PR even though it currently shows PR N/A

 

[AssetDomains]

I should have said these are all .uk domains, which of course go through the long 90 day dropping process before they can be caught. This means the vast majority have lost their toolbar pagerank in that period, and so drop to N/A well before being caught. In theory, the original PR should return... eventually.

When you says "holds PR3 rank", you mean the PR cam back from N/A instantly? Or you caught a domain which hadn't gone to N/A in the first place?

Caught and it had not gone I'll PM the link.

 

[Murray]

Usually I only bother going for the high-end SEO domains, they've always showed their PR pretty quickly.. the better the link profile the quicker the PR shows.

I should also add on occasion I've just added a single noindex page that says "site coming soon", so it's not really about content.

I've only had one domain take longer to show it's PR, and that took until a PR update, but it had quite a weak link profile (ended up being PR3).

The next PR update should come soon, they will defiently show their PR then, but if they still show as n/a then you have problems :twisted: and they might be duds.

 

[jimnastics]

Thanks Murray, encouraging to hear it might be soon. Another idea I've had is to download backlink reports from OSE / majestic and ping all the best links, get the Google crawlers back to them. Might work I guess?

My main concern really is that I'm still actively catching, buying hosting etc., I need to know when I should call it a day... I'll try and hang in there until the next update.

 

[jimnastics]

If it was indexed when the last toolbar PR update happened then it will show straight away - if not you will have to wait.



Why do you need it to show toolbar PR? - You're links will still benefit from the ACTUAL PR even though it currently shows PR N/A

Interesting, thanks Boxfish, I understand what you mean about it needing to be indexed.

Regards needing to show toolbar SEO, all my clients are basically Internet Marketers. They feed off of PR... no PR, no dice.

 

[Murray]

Thanks Murray, encouraging to hear it might be soon. Another idea I've had is to download backlink reports from OSE / majestic and ping all the best links, get the Google crawlers back to them. Might work I guess?

My main concern really is that I'm still actively catching, buying hosting etc., I need to know when I should call it a day... I'll try and hang in there until the next update.

The last update I think was around very early feb and usually it's around every 3 months so possibly during may it will be updated again.

A friend told me once that adding the site + site map to webmaster tools gets it to show PR quicker, but I've never had to do that.

Yesterday I finally put a page on a site I caught a few weeks ago so it will show it's PR, It's link profile Is pretty strong (it used to be a national newspaper ) I expect it to show it's PR within the next week, I will let you know if it does.

 

[jimnastics]

A friend told me once that adding the site + site map to webmaster tools gets it to show PR quicker, but I've never had to do that.

Yep, I can easily see that working, you're practically guaranteeing being indexed quickly and so toolbar PR will follow. I just can't do that, unless I created a different GWT account for every single domain, using a different IP for each so it can't be tracked (I can't have any relationship between the sites).

Will be interesting to hear how you get on with that domain!

 

[AuthorityDomain]

I've had this several times with dropped uk domains and some take longer than others to regain the PR. like others have said sometimes you need to wait until the next PR update which should be soon as its been a while since the last update.

You say your clients are Internet Marketers then they should know not to rely on PR.

I picked up a web design domain just today with links if you are interested? Be interesting to see how long it takes. Although I've yet to put a site on it.