Massive Pagerank with bullshit links?

I was looking around at some sites on the internet. I saw one site that had only been in operation for about 5 months. What was even more surprising to me was the link buildling strategy that I discerned the webmaster was using.

This guy basically goes from one blog/commentary site (digg/myspace/technorati/internet forums/and any kind of major site that allows user comments) and posting up links to his site.

We have about the same number of backlinks. I have got links from sites with pretty good PR (generally PR3-5 on the page where my link is listed). Yet, this guy is predicted to have PR5.9 and I'm supposed to get PR5.2. He did that using pretty much these little shitty bullshit links.

I am totally astounded. Is this possible? Can you get a PR6 using essentially bullshit PR0 links from PR7-9 sites?


frosty

 

you can get any pr from just pr0 links, If you have enough of them.. But i think it goes to show how meaningless PR really is.

 

The thing I'm saying though, is that me and this guy have about an equal PR and an equal number of backlinks, but my backlinks are from much higher PR sources (on the actual page of the link). I have backlinks that are usually PR4 from the actual page the link is on, with the domain of the site sending the link at about PR5. This other guy goes to a PR7-9 site (myspace, digg, financial times, etc) and posts a comment (which goes on a PR0 page) and seems to be doing just as well as I am.

This seems to be the opposite of everything I've learned about how a smaller number of quality links is better than a large number of crappy links.


frosty

 

If I understood you right you checked pagerank on one of PR prediction sites? Those tools mean nothing, they are far away from reliable, I have never seen one of them guessed right my pagerank, don't bother with that.

 

Ok, first off, let's address the root of the problem here. This one sentence indicates that you don't know what you are looking at. Until you do, nothing else pertaining to how PageRank and the updates work is going to make sense to you. Toss in with that the number of people who will give you bad info in a thread like this and you are more likely to move away from what you are trying to find out rather than towards it.

So, to start, where did you get the impression that you would get a 5.2 PR and he a 5.9?

-Michael

 

Tools are not accurate, you must remember this.

 

Don't focus on pagerank it is USELESS. It won't make you more money, it won't bring you more traffic, and it will not improve your search engine rankings.

 

Yeah, I had a site that was supposed to go PR6 according to one of those. It stayed at PR3.

 

it's pretty possible to increase PR with del.icio.us, technocrati and so on

 

Sadly thats the way it seems..

 

Useless for somebody who doesn't know how to use it.It can bring you more money for sure.

 

What are you talking about? Both sites use the nofollow attribute for all links.

 

Technorati doesn't on the homepage. Didn't check the other.

-Michael

 

Relevancy > Pagerank links

 

You're right. Lets put it this way, if a site actually makes it onto the homepage of Technorati, then it probably deserves the link. All other pages are "nofollow" in either the META or links.

 

Incorrect assumption.

His site is already a PR5. It's got a Toolbar PR5, and other tools say that Google data centers have it currently at PR5. It's predicted to rise to a PR6 by the iWeb tool page rank predictor. My site is a PR4 (currently being updated by Google). At some point it is predicted to rise to a PR5. Given the site's linking to me, I think that is easily possible.


frosty

 

Ok, my bad, I thought you were looking at a multi-dc tool that was showing you the average of what the various DC's were currently, and assuming that was a prediction.

What you were actually looking at however is meaningless. It's not your fault, it's the tools, and the way they lead you to believe that there is any sort of accuracy to it whatsoever.

-Michael

 

No biggie.

The guy has a current PR5. I looked at those tools that show you Googles 10 or so data centers and average out what the PR is for them. They all said 5.

When I go to his site, my Google Toolbar is half-full (PR5).

I have looked at his backlinks (1,000 of them anyway). They are mostly gotten by using the method above. Logging into some high-ranking blog, or BBC, or the Guardian, myspace, or some other site that allows commentary, and then leaving a comment and a website.

He has gotten a PR5 that way. Of the 1,000 backlinks I viewed of his, I saw almost no substantial webpages that had any PR value.


frosty

The only thing that I can say is that in the most important SERP of my category, he (and I) are on the second page. Now, whether this be due to a lack of anchor text, or both of our sites being relatively new, or something else, I cannot say.

 

Don´t rely on pagerank predictors, they are useless.

 

I am having trouble understanding why PR is such a big issue here. Ok he has a PR5, but you guys are still on the same page when it comes to SERPS.

Unless you are competing for link sales, why would you care what his PR is. And why do you pay any attention to that stupid PR prediction tool. Here is a perfect example of why that tool is useless:

I linked my girlfriends new blog from my PR5 blog. That is the only link coming in to her site and she just got a PR4 from the update. The Page Rank predicts a PR0.

The fact is, it only really takes one high quality PR link to drive up your PR. Out of the 1,000 links you viewed, 999 of them can be crap...but all he really needs is one good link.

While it's important to pay attention to your competition, you are focusing on the wrong thing. PR is only an indicator and nothing more. It also has no correlation to how you rank in the SERPs.

You strike me as being one of those guys who refuse to link to PR0 sites only because they have a PR0. Unless your goal is selling links, you need to forget about your PR (and your competitions PR); focus on building a quality site that your visitors will find useful and you will benefit in the long run.