Just wonder, how much does pagerank affect a site's position within google? For example, if I saw a big jump in pagerank at the next update, would i also see my site jump up the rankings?
No, not at all. I have sites with lower PR and being high on SERP on G. for specific keywords. However, I have noticed that each time my sites have higher PR, the traffic is decreasing...
PR (Page Rank) has a factor on where sites rank in the results pages. But I dont think its THAT big of a factor. I have seen sites with a PR of 1 on the 1st page of google. Those are usually old sites that have been around for a long time. Just nobody links to them. What kind of jump are you talking about? A jump from page 50 to page 1? A jump from page 2 to page 1? It also depends on your competition. Lets say that your ranking in at #5 for your targeted keywords. The people at #1 - #4 are getting natural links from their high quality content, while your buying links from spam filled directories and posting duplicate content articles that you bought from some articles site. Who do you think is going to rank better? Page rank is just one factor out of dozens. Some factors, such as bought links that pass page rank, links from spam filled directories, duplicate content - those can have a very negative impact on where your site ranks. Do not get obsessed with page rank to the point where you ignore everything else. Because PR is just one little part of the big picture.
Just stay focus on SERP. PR is meaningless... Organic traffic is what you want... Better have a PR2 with 1000 uniques/day than a PR7 with 2 lost and 3 bolds/month...
I'm already at #8 for my keyword, and I'm PR1 - so I talking about a jump from the bottom half to the top half of the main page. Most of the backward links are dofollow commentluv blog posts that I've built myself, with a few natural. I can't imagine my competitors have many natural links either though because of the niche we're in. Which is promoting freebie sites (ie get a free ps3 for 11 referrals). Thanks for your reply, although it has only confuesd me more! So how can I avoid being negatively affected? And what are the best links to get?
I think the main benefit for PR is for other sites wanting to link to your if it is high enough. At that point you may sell links or it's juts the benefit of increasing your backlinks.
PR should not be your focus at all. It should come as a side effect of link building. Though it IS a ranking factor in Google's algorithm, it is NOT very important as it once was. It's one of over 200 ranking factors they are looking at when they rank your URL for a particular keyword phrase. Having inbound links from relevant pages (internal and external to your site), link text containing the exact keyword phrase you want to rank for (and some percentage of slight variations or partial matches of the targeted keyword phrase in the link text), the keyword phrase or slight variations in the <title>, <h1>, <h2>, ..., the content, etc. are all MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more important than the PR of your page. IMO the PR of your URL carries about as much weight as having the keywords in your URL... which ain't that much. It does help... but the amount of boost you'll get is miniscule. PR0 pages outrank PR6,7,8 pages all day long over and over in the SERPs. About the only thing PR is important for these days is selling links.
In real life it's normally the other way round, if you have built some good links and started seeing that your SERPs are improving, you can be more or less sure that in the next update PR is likely to be increased. Don't focus on PR, focus on getting found when someone searches for your keywords, and focus on making a sale after a visitor is on your website.
Well it depends Especially to your niche and competitors. Anyway, It's just one of many ingredients, but it's still an ingredient.
Thanks for all your help guys, I'm amazed they have over 200 factors to factor in! I guess pagerank is just a general guide then - and so the long slog that is link building continues...
Yes, better to concentrate more on serp. This will give your site more benefits in terms of getting higher organic traffic from search engines thus may lead to increasing your site's CONVERSION..
it is possible to get onto page 1 with a pr 0, beating all those with a good domain age and high pr and provided you have targeted your keyword correctly then you will get gr8 traffic. un install your google toolbar and page rank indicator it only serves to stress ppl out...