How does a low PR site get *SOME* amazing search results?

I really don't understand this PR thing at all. I habitually check my stats to look at where the refferals are coming from. Just now I checked one that came in from the MSN Live Search Engine and my lowly PR4 site was listed on the first page of a search query that found 6,359,431 results.

How does this happen for a PR4 site on a query that has none of it's keywords in it?

 

It could be the quality and originality of your content, MSN loves new and original content.

 

Well it was only a forum post with a funny picture in it but heck, I ain't complaining.

 

MSN or live ranking has nothing with PR. PR is only for google.

 

It's MSN Gotta love it. I recently made what I thought was a "niche" site and didn't put a lot of effort into it and it ended up ranking for a really competitive phrase that was totally unoptimized / unexpected.

really? whenever i get high PR links my MSN rankings skyrocket

 

spam ;...

 

What is spam here

 

Yes, please enlighten us.

 

You have to remember MSN is not Google, totally different factors to rank well.

 

MSN top ranking can be achieved with really few links, so maybe someone linked to you with that anchor text

 

There's a few things being confused here.

First is MSN with google, as mentioned above

second is PR with SERPS - there is no reason why a low PR site can't rank for competitive search phrases (search for recent thread by 'thegypsy', among many others). In any case PR4 is pretty reasonable.

third and also very important is

there is little relationship between 'no of results' and how difficult a phrase is to rank for. What you care about is how many people actually search for a phrase, and how much of that you manage to attract to your site. I have a phrase that is no 2 out of 185 million, but only brings about 10 visitors a day.

the last question is a bit harder - it's unusual but not impossible to rank for a phrase that isn't on your page or site. It happens if enough other sites use the same link text to link to the page - then that link text becomes associated with the page.

Cheers

 

Thanks for all your input, guys. There's some interesting information here. Cleared up a few things I was scratching my head about.

Thanks again

 

PR isn't directly related to SERP.

Also you're talking about MSN . PR is created by Google for trust rank.

 

I know that PR is strictly speaking a Google thing but I always assumed that all other search engines must follow a similar process to come up with their own.

 

Your assumption is totally misleading you about the understanding of PR. All search engines have their own "Search Algorithm". And they don't follow any standards like Google Page Rank.

Going back to SEO basics will give you a better understanding about these search engines and how they will give points to your site in rankings.

Again, I will just want to clarify to you that PR isn't related to SERP. Especially other Search Engines have their own way how to rank websites. Your previous post are now contradicting. You're totally confused with PR thing and other Search Engines algorithm.

 

PR isn't even a clear solution to google, let alone MSN.

Like Khasmoth said, there are a lot of factors that go into each SE's algorithms, and rarely does a site meet the criteria for ranking on all three in the top SERPs.

Add to that the number of returned results has nothing to do with how competitive the results actually are. Various SE's have different ways that algorithms apply to searches based on the traffic that the terms produce.

And also remember that:
a) Toolbar PR isn't necessarily a reflection of actual inbound linking
b) Toolbar PR isn't necessarily a reflection of current inbound linking
c) Toolbar PR isn't a reflection of relevant linking
d) Toolbar PR has little or nothing to do with the majority of ranking variables that go into deciding who ranks where for which terms.

 

The toolbar PR is updated every 3 months so it is an old data set.

The actual/current PR might be a 6.

 

LOL, I have a site, listed 1st on MSN for 2 most targeted keywords, out of 7 mil of results, sites 40 days old, no PR

 

Ok, so PR has nothing to do with Serps, right? and as far as serps are concerned, each search engine can give the same site completely different results. OK. I think I'm getting there.

So this brings me to perhaps a really basic question but.... If PR has no bearing on SERPs, why does everyone keep banging on about PR? Isn't PR basically a pointless system?

Aren't SERPs more important than PR?

 

Your totally right and sound like your on the right track Loads of people are just Pagerank fiends