Sharpseo, I can't prove that alien abductions aren't real either, but until I see concrete proof that they exist I won't believe it. If you are trying to claim that PR leak exists, then prove it. Not theoretically. Prove that in the real world outgoing links can harm a page in any way. It may seem ricidulous to you but that doesn't alter the reality that it's true. PageRank doesn't depend on outgoing links; it depends on incoming links. I don't know what you're trying to say here - I think you're confused about what contributes to PageRank and how much of PR is available to be passed to other pages. If you are pointing to a difference between PR of the home page and PR of internal pages, that's not unusual at all. Again, PR is determined by incoming links, not outgoing links. And PR accrues to a page, not to a site.
That's a load of crap. There is no such thing as PR "leak" "drain" "loss" or whatever other word you want to stick in there. IT DOES NOT EXIST!
PR Leak does not exist - FACT. Do a search for "add a link" sites. I've seen sites with approximately 500 outgoing links on a page and their page rank is no different that any other page that is the same distance from the homepage. There's proof. I have a PR4 site which I haven't got around to fully developing, but about 6 months ago I added a database of 4000 outgoing links. I haven't done any link building to the site and the PR on those pages has not changed. Each page has a set amount of PR it can pass out. It passes approximately 85% of it PR - so a 4.4 PR page can pass a TOTAL of 3.74 PR. It always passing the same amount of PR to outgoing links, it is just divided by the number of outgoing links on the page. If you have a bank account with $50 in it, and say it pays a dividend of 10%, it has $5.00 to distribute. If it distributes it to one person, they get the entire $5.00. It is distributes it to 10 people, it is still distributing $5.00, it is just each person is getting 50 cents. It doesn't matter if it is distributes it between 1 or a million people, the account is still worth $50 and that never changes because of the amount of people that share the dividend. That is how page rank works. I looked at ezinearticles. The homepage is a PR6, and each link I checked from the home page is also a PR6. Internal PR isn't the same on all pages, because it will decrease by a factor of one with each level it is away from the home page PROVIDED the internal pages don't have links incoming to them. I have sites with higher internal PR than the homepage because there are more incoming links to those pages (and they happen to have outgoing links, where the homepage doesn't).
Ok, for all those arguing with me, realize that I have never said PR leak definitely exists. I am saying that definitively stating something does not exist because you don't have proof of it is ignorant, simple as that. By the way, this is the second time I've gotten red rep within 5 minutes of debating on the side opposite minstrel. At least leave your name, whoever is doing it. Ok, I think we need to clearly define what PR leak is. I am not talking about the actual page the links are on losing PR directly. However, the rank that this page distributes to your other internal page will be lessened or diluted by more outgoing links. Therefore, your pages (and site as a whole) can potentially have diluted pagerank because of outgoing links. The theory is that more links outgoing = less PR to give to your internal links. I think there are times when outgoing links to sites Google views as authoritative can benefit you, but I'm not convinced that PR leak doesn't exist for most links. If each page only has a certain amount of PR to spread around, lots of outgoing links on your site's pages should theoretically reduce your pages PR. Because of the slightly decreased value of your internal links. I'm not saying I believe in it completely, but it shouldn't be dismissed without evidence.
It didn't come from me but have you considered that maybe it's not because you're arguing an opposite side but because you are calling people ignorant? Beyond that you seem a bit confused about (1) rules of logic - see the alien abductions analogy above; and (2) PageRank. One last time: One cannot prove something does NOT exist. If you believe something exists, it's up to you to prove that it does.
I never said it did exist. I said it may exist. You are the one making definitive statements without any proof. Definitive statements, whether for or against the existence of something, should have evidence. Do you have an answer to the other part of my argument? If a page on a site has 20 internal links and 50 outgoing links, I'm pretty sure those internal links will pass less PR than they would have without the outgoing links. Therefore, the other pages on your site should receive less PR than they would have without the external links. It's just a theory, I'm not sure one way or the other. I don't let this stop me from linking to quality sites and resources my visitors find useful. I just think it's possible that PR leak does exist, despite what everyone says with certainty. If you have 20 links total on a page, and good internal linking structure, I would think that 50 outgoing links would have an effect on the PR passed to all the internally linked pages. Do you disagree? Or are we talking about different things? I apologize.
*sigh* You're not paying attention. One LAST time: It is not logically possible to prove something does not exist. That's why in science the burden of proof is always on those who want to claim that something does exist. In the scientific method, if I want to show that something exists, I construct a null hypothesis which states in effect that my actual hypothesis is false. Then I set out to try to amass evidence to disprove/reject the null hypothesis. If I cannot do that, I have no basis for claiming that "it" exists. Anything else is neither logic nor science - it's faith, aka religion.
Okay...if this is your definition then you're using the wrong term. The word "leak" denotes a negative loss from the original. What you're talking about is "passing" pagerank and/or weight. Many people who say pages leak PR really think that the original page loses PR weight when they list outgoing links. That's incorrect. THIS is what everyone is stating is myth.
Ok, thanks for clarifying. I didn't know people avoided outgoing links because they thought the page with the links would lose PR. What I'm talking about is if you have more outgoing links on a page, it will result in less PR being passed to the internal links on your page. This could result in an overall loss in PR for all the pages linked to from that page.
I always felt this was a fairly accepted theory, but the same holds true even if all you're doing is linking to internal pages. Optimizing navigation and internal links has strong ties to user functionality....a page with hundreds of links really does the visitor no good. Through appropriate design layout you 'emphasize' the most important elements and lead your visitors in a certain direction. It's the same with engine spiders. I think one trap a lot of sites fall into is putting too many links on their home page. I generally focus on creating information hubs within my sites. You can pull a lot of PR into secondary pages that way. I've never had a problem getting internal pages indexed quickly and usually a hub will have the same pagerank as the home page. Going back to the original post....simply put, you can still link to other sites and have strong internal pagerank. ~Dreamshop
I tend to agree with Sharpseo and Dreamshop. The actual page with the outgoing links won't "lose" PR but the PR that you feed back to the rest of your site will be reduced (based on my understanding of the original link theory). I have also noticed a trend where directories that do not pass PR (use jump links) on average have higher PR than directories that do pass PR. Just an observation at this point.
Could be. Its just a general observation that hasn't been tested scientifically. My observations were based on high PR sites (4-6).