Hi everyone Great to see those hard worked few benefiting from the recent PR update. My question may dull some of the PR glow ... Is it really true that your pagerank has very little to do with your ranking? Surely this cannot be true? I'm sure a single page with a PR of 7, is going to rank higher for the same keyword, than a PR 1 page right? Or, does it have something to do with the raw quantity of links pointing to a page? There are an aweful lot of people out there, selling links which according to their theories, will help your PR, and subsequently send you to the top of the search engines for any given keyword. Now I read this is un-true? Hmm. I don't know if it is even worth gunning for top links now. Perhaps I should just be looking for quantity? Please, someone set me straight as it is messing with my fragile brain. Cheers, Jonathan
Jonathan, the problem is that many get hold of the wrong end of the stick. They see a high PR and assume it is the PR that is making the page rank highly. (In reality it is the links, by and large) the PR is a by product of those links rather than the main factor for the ranking. It is mostly the anchor text in your links that pushes you up, not the link itself nor the Pr of the page (although again a page ranking highly in page rank terms does so because of the volume of links pointing to it!). If you go out and buy a load of text links with a selection of anchor text across a raft of c class IP's then you are likely to move up the rankings at a rate on knots. Also as a a by product, your pr will also go up. But it is important to understand that it is not the PR doing the business, it is the content and spread of the link anchor text. Safe to say that it is almost impossible to collect a load of links without also collecting page rank.
Best way to understand the impact of PR is like this: The thematic trail of links. A PR7 page whose IBLs include the word 'Flowers' in the anchor text... has a theme of flowers. Now link from that page to another site on flowers with the word flowers in the anchor text and you are getting the value of the thematic trail of links and I believe the full value of the PR. Link from the same page to something about handbags and the same impact won't be felt. Sure, the handbags link would still help the page, but not as the flowers page was helped. By itself, a PageRank score is more a measure of overall popularity on the internet...