As long as PageRank continues to be one of the 100 or so factors in determing the SERPs no one can say that it has absolutely no value. At the same time, many people do put too much importance on PageRank. I still use it as an indication of importance when linking to sites along with other factors like whether the site was cached recently, the theme of the site, etc. I'm still going to be suspicious about linking to a site that is pr 0. Recently one of our sites that was pr 5 dropped to pr 0 and went supplemental. It was probably penalized because of irrelevant outbound links sitewide. So, in that case the pr should tell you to look into things a little further before you link to that site otherwise you are linking to a site that has low trust in google which will reflect badly on you. Toolbar pr may not be live but it's recent enough to still be important, imo. The site I was referring to was most likely penalized by changes in BigDaddy from april and the toolbar export that dropped it to pr 0 was not long ago. That means that the toolbar pr can reflect the live pr of a few months ago which does give you some indication of what google thinks of the site. Keep in mind also that some companies will not buy links from low pr pages even if they have good traffic because they have agreements with their clients that are based on their rankings - not the way it should be but there's not always much you can do about it unless you're at the top or you can convince your client of it's worth.
If I have a site about "300 thread count egyptian sheets", I want links to and from any site other site about the same thing regardless of PR. Some webmasters simply don't know....
If I understand you correctly, you can do that kind of reciprocal linking and it might be good for traffic but excessive reciprocal linking can get you penalized so it won't be good for rankings which will affect your traffic.
Here's the deal... say you've got a website with 10k backlinks and a PR7. All the backlinks are related to toilet paper. Now, for whatever reason your website is about ringtones. Do you really think that you're going to rank well for ringtone terms, even though you have a PR7? That's why PR isn't as important as people think (although it'is still good to have). What difference does it make if PR is high? What's your purpose here? Usually it's to generate income. If links sales are you thing, then sure PR is what you're after. If serps or traffic is your thing then PR should be kept in the far back of your mind.
Ha ha ha..now we’re going! Ok, what I stated still stands true since the last comments. 1. Linking activities 2. Assessing red flags So, do we have other uses? As far as selling links, one of the few purposes, it shall not be long until you can say goodbye to that as did recips. We are learning that the LGB (little green bar) and PR have little to no value and as such mere PR of a page will be understood in its proper light. This will create more natural link building programs. Even now the mere PR doesn’t matter to us. We still calculate the true PR that’s being passed from the page. That’s the nature of back links. If you haven’t read into VIPS ( Visual-block Page segmentation) do so. While a Microsoft works, relative algo implications are there for Goo as well. Even an understanding of Google’s LSI (latent semantic indexing or it’s core latent semantic analysis) would be good to start putting these pieces together Isn’t that it really? Shouldn’t we be discussing things such as HillTop, Big Daddy, LSI, VIPS? Areas that are far more educational and productive in understanding how SEM should be conducted. It’s PR this and PR that… no one can even get it right. It’s NOT A PR UPDATE. It’s a PR export to the ToolBar. Page Rank is calculated on the fly. Why must everyone be so uniformed but so passionate? Speaking of LSI, many of your comments could be better suited to it’s discussion instead of Page Rank some examples; “After all, aren't we all here to build backlinks and the best way, to date, is to base it off of PR.†YES. So learning about LSI, is a great start. This is where you learn about creating relevance in ‘link text’ and how the algorithm is treating it. Page Rank is not nearly as important as LSI in understanding linking strategies in a post Big Daddy world. “All the backlinks are related to toilet paper. Now, for whatever reason your website is about ringtones. Do you really think that you're going to rank well for ringtone terms, even though you have a PR7?†Excellent. This is the beginning of understanding LSI. The next is how it tries to mimic human thought. There’s the real fun stuff. A few other things, just cause I love ya ! Brian had some points; “no one can say that it has absolutely no value.†– I said it had no ‘measurable’ value. It is certainly a factor, as I stated in my summary. “I'm still going to be suspicious about linking to a site that is pr 0.†– Yes. This is the red flag part. Good for that purpose, or for SEOs to identify problems (SiteMap is good as well though) “it's recent enough to still be important,†– The 5 months between exports is a bit much for us. One more – “you can do that kind of reciprocal linking and it might be good for traffic but excessive reciprocal linking can get you penalized†– If we are talking Google, forget recips. They are seen as spammy. Big Daddy hates recips. And the adventure continues
All PR is, is the overall PR gained from links in. If there is no pr, the site may not be cached or could be banned. Thats it. Nothing more, nothing less.
I am on you with the deeper crawling part, but I have seen terms for sites that had issues (ie; PR0) that were still ranking in the SERPs above a PR7, which was only pulling am 8th place behind some PR4-5 sites. So I guess I am curious on the "could be banned." part. How is this possible? Can you tell me more? thanks in advance
Now a days reciprocal links have just become obsolete. As quoted by iowadawg only inbound and paid links are in -- the hard fact!
While its true that Googe is drastically changing the old system, PR still does have a place. IMHO Google is trying to do its best to focus on new content and tossing PR to sites that are new. However, the sandbox effect is still a reality and old sites are still making the top of the serps with their totally outdated content (good for the webmasters that make those sites 5 years ago, but bad for the new sites and for the users looking for new, up-to-date content). All anyone can do right now is speculate about the future of PR. I still have my eggs in that basket and consider it an important thing to have. Oh yeah, its ad nauseam, not ad nausea.
I can't help being amazed at how some people give PR mre importance than the actual SERPs - and I can't help being amazed at how many people like that I run into every day. Because of its seeming simplicity, PR might be the easiest concept for people to embrace - or so they think. Toolbar PR is something visible to them and that makes it such an easy thing to hold on to. But of course, PR alone tells you nothing about a site in question and you cannot make any healthy judgement based on it alone.
Are you sure you aren't talking about the serps? Unless I'm missing something, PageRank involves a purely mathematical formula that passes from one page to another via links independent of factors such as the newness of the content of the receiving page.
As posted earlier and elsewhere, that formula may be askew. Some sites have gained PR withouth doing . . . anything. Like I said, that was the old way. I am talking about PR.
I hate to shoot you down..but I do infact sometimes use it to gauge my trust of a website..last time I checked I was a consumer.
That is not in doubt, but as a consultant I rely more on actual data when making my strategy decisions. I have traveled far and wide and this so-called 'consumer trust' tool is so popular that a total of ZERO marketing studies/reports have been done on it. I appreciate the tech/developer/webmaster crowd loves it, I just cannot advise targeting PageRank with my client’s livelihoods and marketing budgets. I have no problem in stating it has an inherent value, I just cannot say it has a measurable one unfortunately. As such, PR is a minor consideration in my strategies. I just don’t believe the SEO community should proliferate the myth that we really can quantify ‘what’ PageRank is really, never mind it’s actual ‘value’. As always… IMHO
Xeno bro.... not nitpickin... but hey, advice is advice... try a dictionary and find me 'nauseam' Please..... I haven't given it a ton o research but at Dictionary.com they said you are wrong. Hee hee ... http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nauseam See, we can't always take advice (written PR beliefs) at face value. Reesearch is illuminating. All in fun BTW Xeno..not being anal or anything....
I think ad nauseam is latin I guess I have to post something relevant to the post as well: I definitely agree that it wouldn't be something to focus on with your clients' livelihoods and marketing budgets since it doesn't have a direct relationship to traffic let alone conversions. In that case, I don't see PR having an inherent value from an seo point of view or a marketing one since it's only part of the equation for the serps and the serps are the main thing for seo. Maybe I'm being anal but I thought I should post something
You are not ‘anal’ you are ‘enlightened’ and have a future in successful SEO..ha ha ha..It’s true! It has a use as a general ‘indicator’ of a site. We often use it to start identifying potential ranking/weighting issues. I believe they give out a PR3-4 like candy. It means ‘Good Job’. A PageRank of -1-2 means ‘we have a few issues here’ (even new sites will show up at PR3 done right). A PageRank of 0, is ‘WE HAVE PENALIZATION ISSUES’ It can be an indicator of deeper problems. As far as being a focus as a market segment (PR Cult followers) .. not a chance. Let me further assist, you said “since it's only part of the equation for the serpsâ€. I can’t disagree more as I have data (along with a ton of other data from 20+campaigns were on) from a site that was RANKING #1 for a term with in excess of 80 000 000 in ‘competition’ that had a PageRank of ZERO.. yup a PR0 sitting pretty up there on a competitive term ahead of PR5-6-7 sites….. So PR being a weighting factor in any true sense, seems unlikely.
Hi gypsy, Thanks for the compliment I think you might have misunderstood my post or maybe it wasn't clear. When I said that it was part of the equation, I wasn't saying that it was a weighty part of the equation or implying anything about it's weight. It is just part of the equation, as Google says, it is one of over a hundred factors in ranking. Call PR 'x' and the other hundred or so factors 'y' and you could have 0x + 99999y = high ranking, i.e., theoretically, a site witih 0 PR could rank higher than a site with PR 9: 9x + 1y for instance, high in PR low in other factors (theoretically). Also, where is the PR from? As we've mentioned and I think you have as well, the PR shown is an old value so it may be higher if you are basing it on the toolbar PR.
Sorry, I am with you now. That's it IMHO. It really did have a greater value to us pre-hurricane 'Florida' (and HillTop). Since then (Florida,Jagger, Big Daddy et al) it has been devalued. I just wish SEO providers/enthusiasts would 'de-value' it as well. That's all. I went on a crusade with this (here and 4 other SEO/Web master forums) that ended up with a front page article on SlashDot (oops) about the 'Cult of PageRank' that was about as high a 'HillTop' I could find to scream from. Google it here It is tongue-in-cheek and slanted to the followers of the 'Cult of PR', it was never intended for public consumption, but the ensuing fallout has been great..lol My real point is that it is over-valued. Not useless. I merely used that to get the emotional response I felt I would, and did get. Same as the title of this post, 'The Truth' yada yada. I don;t have the 'truth' but I knew a post title (and article writing style) would garner my quest the greates response. The original distributor of the article has created a forum in concert with the article here I mentioned the ‘angle’ it was written from. ‘I took some lumps there too ( ) I say we all have to make up our own minds. I already have and will keep presenting my data to anyone whom will listen. I don’t want another young generation of SEOs to have to deal with LGB envy and misdirection.