Hey peppy, nice question .. when linking to a site check here its backlinks, (link popularity) http://www.checkpagerank.net/index.php check the domain age, if it's listed on known directories or not .. You can than guess its real value .. Also, use http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/link-appeal.shtml for link appeal .. PR5 pages with 400 outbound links isn't a good deal .. Just build your content .. and PR will come with the time (You said you got a link from an authority in your domain .. that's enough ..)
pagerank algorithm is flawed in my opinion - how can you evaluate a site based on how many other sites link to it? Anyone with the money and the influence can anyway get tons of sites to link to them - PR is not a true measure of quality as googld would claim.
Great - how would you measure the true quality of a site algorithmically? Google is not unique in this regard - all search engines use links to some extent for ranking.
Forget about PR. Just add lots of unique content targeted to your selected keywords and get backlinks.
If google toolbar says PR6 and you can get a link, go ahead and do it. PR may change, but a link from a good authority site always has some value.
LOL! I think pagerank is flawed as well. One of my sites only has a PR1, but easily deserves a PR9. I demand an explaination!
i would`nt say its flawed. i would say its a useless tool and one that we could quite easily do without. there is no need for pr anymore, all it is good for is people that want to sell links.
Not true people with quality websites like linking to quality content thats the whole theory behind the way Google indexs. If people care what your PR0 when considering linking to you then they are probably as lost as you are in a magical world of pageranks and eskimos (joking ). What I suspect though is your approaching slightly spammy sites about linking back to slightly spammy content in the hope of raising your PR because you think it is going to make your site super awesome. Seriously though forget about PR and just focus on quality content and building a quality web presence. Sites earning massive amounts monthly often have very low PR.
Don't think this is going to change Google's mind, or the mind of a vast majority of webmasters, about PR.
Google created its PR algorithm for their benefit. Any benefits we webmasters derive are secondary at best. Google is working to maximize benefits to its stockholders, not to us webmasters, so it will do whatever it deems best with PageRank.
Why is everyone so concerned with PR when you should be more worried about your position in the search engine results!?!?
That is a very good point. And you're right, PageRank IS flawed. But you know peppy, you will find that whenever you criticize Google, a lot of people will beat up on you, no matter how true or relevant your criticism is. It is actually totally idiotic to say "Oh, PR is Google's system, they can do what they like with it" - people don't say that about airlines, banks, or restaurants when they have retarded systems that confuse the public. But Google, you see, is different, Google is the equivalent of God to a lot of webmasters here, and even suggesting that one tiny bit of Google's halo is missing will get the pitchforks out.
you shouldnt even worry about pr, it is only a small part of the search engine rankings, just focus on content and traffic and the high pr will come.
FAIL. I criticize Google to no end. I find issue with most of their policies. I think their reliance on the Messiah effect ("Do no Evil" - as if that is a high standard?) is stomach turning. But when Google is on the right side of "logic," then I have to capitulate to The Google. But, rather than holding Google out as the example, please refer me to the Bing ToolBar Rank or the Yahoo ToolBar Rank. Why hold Google to a higher standard than these search engines? We are talking about search engines, not airlines, banks, or restaurants.
It will be great for webmasters like us to have our pagerank displayed accurately but I think it will use more resources from google to do this just for the sake of lets say 5% of internet users. In a view of an ordinary reader or surfer, it won't bother me if I'm reader articles from a website that has not been rank yet or whatever pagerank it has, as long as the article I'll be reading is related to what I'm searching for which I found on SEPR, and this is where we all should focus.
Oh well.. Thanks for the heads up. But, PageRank can be faked by adding a simple .htaccess to the domainroot.