how do you detect fake PR? I mean, you have tools like seolog's fake PR detection tool but all it does is look at a site's cache and match it up with the existing site. so if I 301 a site to dmoz (for sake of conversation) I will get a PR 9 on the PR update right? Assume yes and assume that I did it one week before the PR update, then the cached page will show dmoz. How can people tell if I have a legit pr 9 site when I can easily change the site's content (after the update) and wait for google to cache it and then announce it to the people? I think the site's PR will still be PR9 and that seolog's detection tool won't work. I know you can check a site's backlinks but that won't really help as google rarely shows enough backlinks to figure out a site's PR. You can, of course, wait 3-4 months for the next update, but by then many people have been deceived, probably a lot of money has exchanged hands and other things might have happened. Of course, a PR9 will be very questionable and hard to prove, but a pr4-7 won't be.
To pull off one of these fake PRs one would have to 301 redirect their page/site until it went through a PR update and the Toolbar was displaying the wrong PR. Then one could remove the redirect. The catch is that by the time the next update rolled around, the fake PR would be reset to the real PR. Really this trick takes so much time and has such a short lifespan that it is only really practical as a parlor trick. It will not help one's SERPs.
of course, I'm not talking about SERPS. for example, we all know that before the update on June, we are all anticipating that google will update the PR for at least a month before. It will mean that you have ample time to change and have your site redirected to another site and have google cache it. then after the update, you can remove the redirect. You will still have a PR 4-7 without doing anything. as I said, it's not about SERPS, it's about selling links to people who thinks that PR is all that matters.
The thing is, this method can't be deployed by real sites that work hard on their SEO, depend on real traffic and provide real content because the amount of time the page/site would have to be redirected would be so great that it would destroy all other aspects of the site. Thus, one doesn't have much to worry about this as long as one is buying advertising on real sites that have been around for a long time and obviously focus their efforts on creating real value for users via real content
121603 Ask how to detect Fake PR KLB ask him not to worry Fake PR not sustainable 121603 blinks at missing point hee hee =P Anyway there are 2 methods you can try. Method A On google.com, simply type info:domain.com (the fake pr domain of course). If Google displays no results or if the result is another page that domain.com, the PR is Fake! =X Method B Alternatively you can u those online tools like DigPageRank Tool , which scans a range of Google DataCenters for an actual PR export. Green means it is valid, Red is fake =D Does it help you 121603 ? I hope it does =)