Is PR more important than we think?

If you read most of the SE Forums, you will find that every one of the experts, except a minor few, are claiming that PR is almost irrelevant for ranking in SERPS.

But, what about if Google is using PR in a different way to how we all anticipate?

What if Google uses a 2-part PR in it's calculation.

Part 1 is the actual PR of the page itself, and Part 2 is the PR of the Home page of the site.

I'm not trying to claim that the 2 PRs are added together to give a single figure, just that the PR of the "ultimate parent page" of page has some relevance in the algorithm calculation.

This would explain some instances where a PR0 page can rank quite high in the SERPs when the ranking cannot be explained by backlinks or anchor text, because if you go to the home page of the site where it is located you will find that the website's home page has a quite high PR.

I know some will say that the PR of a particular page is already related the PR of the home page because the pages PR is inherently calculated from the PR of the home page when Google does its PR update.

BUT, a page which is in a directory some distance from the Home Page will end up with a lowish PR.

Others will also mention that because we have not had a PR update in some time, that it is impossible to tell the true PR of a page from the toolbar - very true.

Google has mentioned the concept of Authority sites. Maybe it considers large sites with many pages as an Authority site. Large sites will tend to have their structures broken down into many sub-directories or levels.

By using a 2-part combination PR as I postulated above, Google would be giving Authority to larger sites.

I'd be interested in other people's opinions on this hypothesis.

 

I would still like to see a PR0 page show up on the top 10 search results.

 

Interesting theory and quite possibly on the money.

 

Interesting thought. In fact when you think about it, there are very many things that one can come up with to (i) potentially improve results (ii) reduce the effect of SEO. Take your very own example of 2 level SEO. It can definitely be taken further to 3 or more levels. Further, with Haldiwala there, the concept of themes might come up soon. I have a couple of more thoughts on what they could do (e.g. have different sets of algos depending on the popularity of the search term) etc. Naturally, all this is hypothetical and I am not in the least implying that this actually happens.

But, with the passing of time, some of these very computation intensive processes might start kicking in.

Ajeet

 

BTW, I just noticed that I have crossed 50 posts. When will my picture appear on my messages? I thought that happens are I reacha particular number of messages, but can see Peons with pictures. Also, please point me to the page that lists the Peon - Grunt - Berserker etc hierarchy, along with the number of posts that get you there.
Thanks
Ajeet

 

Well, I have thought for some time that part of the purpose of PR is competitive - inducing webmasters to continually work to improve their sites. I believe what we see on the toolbar is the base PR - and is based on several factors including the size of the site and backlinks, among other factors.

I think there is a second pr which is fluid and based on the particular search - I do alot of searches and Yahoo rarely comes up, despite being a pr 10 site. Thats because it has no business coming up in every search -- but even a pr 0 site can come up in the 1 position if you search specifically enough. Basically, I think the second pr is based more on keyword density and the level of saturation on that particular search. As the search becomes more specific, the number of sites drops, and thus a qualifying site has more pull -- not sure if I make much sense or not -

 

Like what? Specific enough to the point where you have to search for stuff nobody ever thinks about except the site owner searching for something only he/she knows is on their own site?

 

ok - for example - search for

- exact wording & spelling-


6 sites come up.

Lincolnvscadillac.com Main PR 4 Page PR 0
MustangEvolution.com Main PR 0 Page PR 0
911turbo.com Main PR 4 Page PR 0
mailman.xmission.com 404 Error
ford-trucks.com Main PR 5 Page PR 0
jeepforum.com Main PR 5 Page PR 0

I come up first because I have the exact phrase - the others come up because those words are contained on the page in varying frequency.

 

I have several "maple shaker coat rack" #1 G out 10,000 "Oak shaker coat rack" 7 in G out of 10,000 Cherry S/C/R in top 10 I have few more and I have a PR0. But I did not really do any Pr work on this site prior to the last update.
If you check G for shaker coat rack you will see a post I made in this forum at position #7 How can this be explained no optimization. I have seen this several times directories that I have added my link to come up ahead of me in the serps for my keyword. Is this the power of PR?

 

That is sooooo strange.

 

It's a factor I have noticed several times over the last few months since I started getting involved in SEO, and I was commenting with Foxy on the sleeping bags experiment on another thread.

I quoted a site in that thread that was at position 7 for the term sleeping bags with a PR0, and NO backlinks reported.

 

I have noticed the same and commented in another thread about this homepage PR being involved. IMO there seems to be a Site PR and a Page PR of some sort with the first influencing the page's ranking just like the page's own incoming links determines SERPs.

 

I have already explained this in my search engine optimization articles but you guys laughed at me.

Oh well.

 

This is an example:

http://www.google.com/search?q=pro+comp+tires
Project Responder is #8-9 (http://www.projectresponder.com/content.asp?cid=10&pid=23)

http://www.google.com/search?q=acoustishield
#1
(www.projectresponder.com/content.asp?cid=7&pid=108)

Granted these are not competitive terms, but they still show in the top 10 for pages without rank.

The theory is an interesting one. Definitely worth considering.

 

I'm not so sure about this. If you visit www.itlent.com and look at the PR, you'll see a 5. That site has been as you see it for over a year. No content, only a handfull of pages (links). Yet the site still has good rank. The rank, I'm sure, is because of all of the back links to my site I generated over the years, many of which were irrelevant years ago. Draw your own conclusion.

 

While there may not be a definitive answer to the concept of Google using PR in a new way, we do know a couple of things about PR that may help us decide:

PR is not the property of Google but of Stanford University so I think that the idea of changing the basic equation is not too likely, otherwise there would be no need to license it from Stanford.

PR is a seperate ranking item applied after the relevancy calcs have been applied and it uses precomputed data based on the way pages interlink, irrespective of domain or site, so adding computations based on a sites home page would be an entirely new dimension in PR.

Since Google ranks pages not sites, this would be an entirely new idea, and IMO one subject to abuse:

Get yourself a PR9 page and you could have sub-pages ranking for any kind of keywords if PR were really important and if they took into account the PR of the home page.

 

But isn't that what we are seeing happening?

 

And an Example would be...?

 

I've been doing a little research into this recently.
It's all very well and good getting a high PR (or lots of links) on the index page of your site. That's great. But index pages can often be quite generic. And Google is aware of this.

Some of the test I have done, show that links to internal pages withing a site are a LOT more effective when used in conjuction the correct anchor text etc...

This kind of goes to show that what nadalay was saying is correct.

I know that this all seems like common sense, but what is google more likely to do...

Rank a page #1 because on a different page of the same site there are lots of links relating to that particular query> Or is it more likely that it will rank the page with lots of links pointing directly to it...

 

Its not what I see happening, I have seen PR0 pages rank #1 over high PR pages, I have seen for instance a Google PR9 page ranking below a PR4 page for a search related term.

IF PR were an important ranking factor, then IMO we would be seeing more SERPs with the pages in PR order but that is very rare, and considering the fact that those who rank highly most often work both on page content and links it is even more convincing to see low PR pages rank above high PR pages.