Why PR Blows

Rant:

I just noticed a slight increase in questions like: "How do i make my site PR6? How many links do i need?" or "My site is PR4, is this good?" and when you ask them why they say: "Well PR6 sites get a lot of traffic!" or "C'meon dude! Its the koolest new thing to have! (Well not really)"

So i have decided to disappoint a few people crazy about their PR.

PR Blows! And this is why:

1) Its an indicator... (rank). It does not do anything for your SERP, traffic nor CTR (Well, it does make some people happy)
2) PR is changing constantly. Visual PR updates every blue moon. So the PR you are seeing is probably out of date.
3) PR can be manipulated. In fact, anyone can have any PR they want! (Please don't send me PMs regarding fake PR)

Case study:

I just "Ran a search query on Google" (he he Googeld) for "page rank blows" First result is PR0, second is PR4, 7th PR6

So you still want to increase your PR? Why?

 

You have link for a PR6 directory in your sig

I think the answer is selling links.

 

lol true but even link sales. Its all about quality, related links. Not their PR. There are more factors involved however.

PS: This is not my site I gave my signature space away.

 

There is relation of PR and SERP rank but we see only SERP rank with open eyes while PR thrown to us by Google is sometime non-real.

 

Ironic but as you were posting this, i was posting nearly the exact same thing here to someone who thought PR directly equalled SERP.

Except my "case study" was googling the term "search engine" and showing Google a high PR10 was being beat by a PR7, PR8 and a PR9 for this term.

 

The reason is because Google isn't optimized toward the "search engine" keyword.

I don't think PR is completely useless - if I had a "popular" site for a few years and it was still at PR1, I'd know I was doing something wrong.

 

Exactly! It can be used to see how well you are doing but you should work on SEO/trying to improve SERPs/Link development rather than trying to boost your PR.

 

So I can sell links so that other people can raise their PR so that they can sell... Err, nevermind...

 

he he he i must admit that iv made quite a bit of money selling links on high PR sites but personally i always go for traffic when buying links.

 

I think it is a measurement, which means it has some utility and value with respect to what it is supposed to measure.

However, keep in mind, if you have a PR of 4, perhaps most of it was gained for terms unrelated to the search term you are "testing" against. Now, I'm NOT saying the PR is related to the link term directly, but it does give you an idea of how much effort is going into marketing the site...

 

Lets see if the opinion has changed with time

 

for money of course. initially PR might be used to improve SERPS but since many people use it in a wrong way, google reduce much weight of PR on SERPs. but anyway its still a good way to earn money by selling links coz lots of people still believe that link from high PR is good for their site. i dont think there is other reason though.

 

SERPs are effected by SEO and link development. PR is a result of your link building. So even though there is a relationship between PR and SERPs... It works the other way around. PR itself does not have any impact on your SERPs.

 

While the value of a Google PR has been usually over estimated, I think that a high PR is related to a high SERP. At least, that’s what Google is still preaching: “The heart of our software is PageRank™”.

However, getting a high PR shouldn’t be the goal of every website. The goal should still focus in getting relevant traffic, and there are several ways to achieve this end. The most important way to get high traffic is getting relevant links pointing towards your website. These links will increase traffic to your website, and it will also get you a higher PR. So having a PR itself is not what helps you to get more traffic, but we should see it merely as an “indicator” of how well your website is doing for a particular topic or industry.

Getting a high PR shouldn’t be a goal by itself, but it should be used as a tool to see how well your website is doing. Of course, PR is NOT a perfect indicator of your website success or relevance, but until the day in which somebody can find any other better tool that can give you a very quick idea of how well a website is doing, PR will remain as the single, most used indicator to quantify a website’s success.