Google PR - your thoughts.

I think this has been discussed before, but I've been absent from SEO forums recently..

Could it be right that Google PageRank is calculated simply on one way links, and excludes reciprocal link exchanges?

Why do I ask this - well I used to have a PR6 site - it went down to PR5, but the links had increased, but rather than increasing one way links, I've increased reciprocal links.

Now it was either a weak PR6 and they move the goalposts, or reciprocal links have less weight than they used to be - which means my article writing hat has to come back on!

What are your thoughts - or is this just old news?

Darren

 

No, I see sites with just a couple of direct recips holding their PR.

People are saying recips are being devalued to some degree after this update (I dont know if its true) but that would affect serps really, not PR.
I would go with the "weak PR6" theory myself and keep getting all different kinds of links.

 

Good point - thinking about it now I have a beer in me hand, I've pointed a few links to a page and it's jumped up the SERPS - so maybe reciprocal links does have more of an impact on ranking, than PR?

I agree though that it was probably a weak PR6 and they moved the goalposts, which meant the PR5. When you say

I was always under the impression to keep to a theme - is this not the case anymore?

Darren

 

Different links to me =

Different IPs, domains, different anchors, in content, section wide, homepages, subpages, forum links, build some slow, build some fast, build some bold etc etc - as natural appearing as possible. Ideally on topicish. Try and work out how a popular site in your industry would get its links naturally - try and mimic that where you can.

But do you really think that any of the SEs can tell whether a site about cat and fish is different from a site about cat fish. Or Dog food and dog food products. There is far too much ambiguity in language & how its used.
Links from off topic sites are fine too - what is the topic of a news site for example?

All my opinion though.

 

Good opinions.

Recips got nailed in Jagger 3 for SERP placement - but PR is still calculated by the good ol vote-in / vote-out method...