I have only casual acquaintance with SEO and may well miss on something, but out of pure curiosity, how is it possible that my site www.web20ref.com has *no* inbound links (Google shows 1 or 2 but they are internal), and it has PR 3 ? The PageRank algorithm is supposedly based on links. Wikipedia says, "a PageRank of 0.5 means there is a 50% chance that a person clicking on a random link will be directed to the document with the 0.5 PageRank". Which means that my site must have a 0 page rank. Any explanation?
I do not see the 19 links, but I do see 1 link (http://www.usesimulator.com/google_search.htm) Anyhow, I've seen in several occasions sites getting PR3 with no links, but I believe it is a limit of sites with no links.
I checked PR at http://www.websitegrader.com/ and http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_checker As for the links like http://www.usesimulator.com/google_search.htm, it's basically the same site. Not only they are on the same server, but web20ref is actually in a folder within usesimulator.com. That's why I'm saying there are no external links. Maybe Google sees it as external, but then again, usesimulator.com has PR 3 while www.usesimulator.com/google_search.htm which has the only link to web20ref (PR 3) shows PR 0. I have no clue but hope this data will help someone understand better the workings of PR and its interpretation of link weights or whatever. My case is very transparent: two sites, which are essentially one site, have PR 3 each, the "inner" site has only one "external" link from its upper level site, and the page with the actual link has PR 0. That's it. To make it even funnier, link:usesimulator.com shows that this site also has only 1 external link, which is really external in this case. As for a few links to googleweb20.com, it's been renamed to web20ref ("internal" site, see above) and doesn't exist anymore, though there is a redirect. Very weird PR algorythm, or there's something wrong with the tools measuring PR.
PageRank is not only determined by external links, but also internal links. (I found that out by visiting my most neglected pages that somehow got a higher PR than the main index itself despite having no backlinks.) Though, it is unusual that your site has one backlink from another site and ends off with a PR3.
Same thing with my friends site. He just started a blog and just left it with some content. No lins so nothing no traffic. But after the PR update he got a PR 3!!
Google has been playing an awful lot with the PR calculation in recent months. i have one site which is 7 years old and has over 3,000 100% natural back links and is a pr 4, (use to be 5) and i have a site which is 2 years old, with about 200 re-cip links and it also has a pr 4.
I have seen PR5s with 80,000 natural backlinks and PR5s with 100 backlinks. What site would you rather have? Total backlinks as measured by yahoo is the best way to measure the strength of a page.
I have got a PR of 2 for my site www.world-wide-webmasters.com it have some 120 backlinks according the Yahoo... but there is no content in it.... Google is crazy......
I had a site that was Pr 3 as well without any backlinks (yahoo reported nothing as well). It didn't even show up in the google index, Google hadn't index the site. I submitted it to google, and google indexed it eventually and the Pr was gone. So it's basically a fake pr 3 - I have no clue why it does this, but in my case that pr 3 won't help you because it's not real pr (especially since mine wasn't even listed in google). You're case may be different, if you're in the index - it's probably legit. Google does tell you all sites linking to you - even in the webmaster panel, they keep it partially a secret so you probably have a few good authority sites linking to you.
Nothing to loose your slepp over as this is how G is giving PR to sites. I bought a domain on 14th October, bought hosting with a friend and very reputed member of DP on 18th and went out of town. I got to know abt the PR update on 24th October far from my home and when I checked the domain it has already become PR2 At that time- I had nothing on it- bought domains and bought hosting. Thats how Google PR is no-adays. I also know a directory that is showing PR7 on Google directory. But the toolbar PR of that directory has been down-graded to PR4 from PR6 and its also one f the penalized ones. As most of us assume- Google directory shows the real pR of a directory that G values-- it surprises me about the toolbar PR.
Official google PR algorithm awards PR based on inbound links, whether they are internal or external. So the inner linking of you site attributes to PR. Using link: command on Google will not show you all inblund links, to do that you have to go to google webmaster central and open "external links" feature.