In case anyone has or hasn't noticed, today has marked the first full Google Toolbar page rank update in many months. Early indications suggest that it is a full update, with individual pages receiving PR updates in addition to the root domains. While Google Toolbar PR has long ceased to be anything but a bit of a vanity SEO metric, it still offers a nice indication to see that things are moving in the right direction for your SEO work (or not as the case may be). If your PR for your website has not increased in this update, do not be disheartened as there can be many reasons for this and does not mean your site isn't an SEO success.

Across the FiveRDesign SEO portfolio and my portfolio of personal projects, there were some pleasant and unexpected PR gains, none more so than this website itself now being awarded a Google Toolbar PR of 4, up from its previous 2. The two tennis websites I look after, Xtreme Tennis Coaching and TopSpin Tennis Coaching both also gained, gaining a point each to a 3 and a 2 respectively (and they've also seen big increases in their traffic, nothing to do with the Queens and Wimbledon tournaments being all over the TV the last two weeks I am sure *end sarcasm*). In all seriousness this highlights another important point of how seasonal trends can affect your SEO and your traffic, as sites such as tennis coaching sites are likely to see their biggest boom in traffic and customers during June and the period immediately after Wimbledon, so any SEO campaigns should be timed to hit peak results during this time. Conversely, anyone planning Pay Per Click campaigns during something so seasonally affected may find a price spike in their PPC during this time and should budget accordingly.

Of the many sites associated with FiveRDesign or myself personally, the only one to suffer a PR reduction was the one I expected to gain at the next PR update, that being Rocksins.com. Rocksins has literally hundreds of links from all over the Internet including many trusted and high PR domains. However it has also recently undergone a redesign with a completely new HTML structure and it is my suspicion that this may be responsible in the reduction in its PR, that Google may be adjusting to, or does not like the new format of the HTML. I will have to wait until the next PR update to confirm or deny those suspicions but it raises awareness of another important SEO issue, how making even little changes in your HTML markup / on page SEO can have unexpected consequences, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

That's all from the FiveRDesign SEO corner for now, more updates soon!