Root domain has PR0, all other pages have decent PR - Why???

[mncheetah]

I have a few websites in which the root domain has a PR of 0, but the pages within each of these websites have a non-zero pagerank. Each root site has several inbound links. These sites have all been online for quite some time.

What would cause the root domain to have a PR of 0?

I do have 301 redirects set up for each of these domains. Could this be an issue?

Thanks in advance.

[DarkMatter]

its not uncommon for the "content" pages of a site to outrank the home page. people tend to link directly to pages with useful info, as opposed to just linking to an index page.

contrary to popular belief, the home page is often your most useless and least linkable page. why would people link to the table of contents when they can link directly to the content itself?

[mncheetah]

Actually the home pages have way more links (hundreds) than the sub pages.

[Chris Boggs]

without looking at the site(s), mncheetah, this is obviously pure speculation. But I would think it is possible that you have somehow gotten links or been linked-to from a penalized site, causing the zero toolbar PageRank. If you have links to your subpages from other sites, these are likely what are giving you PageRank. Are you using any sitewide inbound linking? The best thing to do if you are studying a situation like this is to print out all of your inbounds. Use both Google and a more thorough report such as Yahoo's linkdomain: command. Look for anomalies and you will likely find out what is hurting you.

[mncheetah]

Is there a way that I can determine if a particular site is penalized?

[Chris Boggs]

well the easiest way to see if it is BANNED is to search the URL in Google. If it shows no results, it may be banned (or simply not yet indexed, which is less likely if it is an "established" directory).

There are variety of ways to speculate that a site has been penalized. Some would say if it has zero toolbar pagerank and a lot of inbounds from sites with PR, that would be a hint. haha I just thought about Jeff Foxworthy..."If your site is blah blah blah, you MAY be penalized..." :p

Another is if you suddenly experience a MAJOR decrease in position for a likely kewyord phrase. I am talking about AT LEAST a drop in 50-100 spots or so, after an algo update or seemingly "out of the blue."

there are other ways that I am sure others may mention in here...