13 replies to this topic

[hypntzd3]

Hello...

I know this may seem weird for some of you, but it is real and for you experts it may be typical. I have a site (my company site) that was just created...I put some optimization techniques into play, but basically it was a brand new site with a page rank of zero and not submitted or truly optimized.

My partner created a site for a company that is doing major online marketing with the PPC approach. The client's site had a page rank of 5 and is getting outstanding traffic. Two days ago we found that our page (being our design company) site went from a page rank of 0 to 5. Now again our site has some optimization techniques but nothing that would create that kind of effect.

Now, the only think I can attribute the high page rank to is that we have an inbound link to our site on nearly every page of the client's site (which he requested). Now, please note...the client is the only site we have as an incoming link...so I'm guessing we have no other low page ranked sites linking back with there by is not deluding our new page rank. I don't know for sure...


Now I have other sites that are a page rank of 3 to 4, but they are very large sites that actually rank 1,2,3 and 5 for their geographic keyword phrase...but their success is largely due to the linking efforts we have put in place.

After reading Wyoming's posting and sharing of the interesting article: Is page rank dead? my thoughts only confirm that page rank is not a reputable means of measuring a site's success. Now I know lots of you will argue this, but again I have a site with a page rank of 5 not showing up in the first 100 results on the search engines (this is only due to the fact we haven't tired), yet my sites with a page rank of 3 or 4 dominate the top results in three keyword phrases.

Now, I know that page rank and your SE positioning results are different, but so many people seem to think that they go hand and hand and I just don't see it. I also want to take a moment to thank Jill for that great special report on copywriting for search engines...very well written and great ideas in there that you can be sure I'll be implementing!

Please send your feedback and thoughts on this.

Hypntzd3

[qwerty]

Now, I know that page rank and your SE positioning results are different, but so many people seem to think that they go hand and hand and I just don't see it.

That's exactly it. PageRank in and of itself is only about the pages that link to a given page. Having a high PR doesn't necessarily mean that a page will rank well, or convert well.

PageRank is an element in the total algo that's used to rank sites in Google's results for queries, but it's one of many.

[hypntzd3]

Thank you for that response, but let me tailor the overall question another way...

Why do other SEs put so much importance on increasing the page rank when it doesn't do much and based on several similar articles of what I posted...its not reputable anymore...the value is lost?!

I'm personally tired of people saying to me...oh my page rank is a 5 or 6...whoopy doo...the don't show up until page 10 of the search engines. I'm mean what am I missing here.

[Cygnus]

Try to forget PR; it'll just give you ulcers. Page rank is just one variable among a multitude of others that determine ranking...to make it even more fun, its importance varies from engine to engine, and could change from day to day with algorithm updates.

Thus, the best advice I can possibly give is to make your site as usable and beneficial to your end users, consistently adding relevant content. If you can increase the number and quality of links to your site as well during this process, all the better. No matter what variable becomes important over the next day, week, month, or year, a quality site will remain; stay away from the flavor-of-the-weeks.

Cygnus

[awall19]

many people know how to spam the search engines.

those that are nasty spammers usually have a harder time getting pagerank because it requires the setup of a network of sites or independant third party votes for a spammy site

anyone can optimize a page for the term

"top ten listing"

by making it the page title
and placing it in ivisible text everywhere

the page will not list at the top of google for any competitlve listings unless it has some pagerank though usually

pagerank just naturally comes with a good site, but those that want to cheat fuss over it because it sometimes requires a little more effort to cheat with

blogging tools and other techniques are starting to make it easier to cheat thogh

[qwerty]

Why do other SEs put so much importance on increasing the page rank

This part of your question has me confused. Other SEs don't deal with PageRank at all; it's just a Google thing. Or did you mean SEOs? If that's the case, I can give you my opinion of SEOs who promote the importance of raising your PR. I think they're just pandering to the obsession people have with PR, and I think that obsession stems from the fact that it's the only element of Google's algo that you can see.

That is, if the PR displayed in the toolbar is to be believed, one can see that after a successful link building campaign it has in fact risen. That kind of result is much easier to measure than ROI, or stickiness, or whether the high rankings you've got are going to do you any good. My problem with it is that that's all it tells you.

[mcanerin]

If you have 2 identical pages (keyword density and positioning wise), page rank will determine the order of appearance.

If you have a site that has a very high page rank, but low relevance to the actual search, then it's page rank will only be relevant compared to sites of similar (low) relevance.

Imagine 2 pages, each with one word on it, and they are the same word. Which one would Google show if a search was done? The fastest to load? The one in alphabetical order? The one with the prettiest colors? The one from your favorite country?

No. Google has decided that the best way to figure out which one should come first is the one that is already the most popular, as measured by backward links, among other things.

In this case, the relevance to a search for that word would be the same, but the PR for one would be higher, thus setting the order.

In a case where 2 competing sites are already optimised, you can have instances where PR is the major difference, hence the obsession with PR. In this case, "true PR" not the pretty green bar, though that has been the object of obsession for some, as well.

Of course, this is simplified, since backlinks and neighbourhoods appear to be taken into account in the relevency decision, as well, and there are a lot of other factors that matter, too. Which is probably why I seem to be losing my hair...

If Page Rank was the end all / be all, then Yahoo would show up at the top of almost every single search everytime. And it's not. But I'd still want to get a link from it.

Ian

[powerofeyes]

Hello,
pagerank is not the only one google relies on to rank a site. Good solid contents with proper synonyms and relevant text too will rank you high in search engines. i can guess from your words that your site should have good solid textual contents in it.
May be the other site which has a page rank of 5 will be lacking good contents. That is the possible reason the other site is not ranking so high. just forget PAGERANK and think how humans rate a site. if your site with good textual contents is rated well by human visitors then we can probably say it is a relevant site and can possible rank high in search engines.
I have one of my client site that ranks from 1 to 5 for a no of keywords. This site has solid contents but the PAGERANK is only 3. Sites with PAGERANK 7 are behind my client site. So as far as my experience could say give google lots of good readable textual contents we have a good chance of ranking. That doesn't mean we don't need link popularity or PAGERANK but it is just couple of other factors that google uses to rates a site.
Ok for example a site without any content but is a .gov site ranks high because of the PAGERANK will you accept it as a visitor. That is what I feel google algorithm might think too,
thanks,
vijay.

[hypntzd3]

awall19

You said...

pagerank just naturally comes with a good site, but those that want to cheat fuss over it because it sometimes requires a little more effort to cheat with

Thats my point...I'm not cheating and the site has only been up for two months. So this reference that page rank comes naturally, in my opinion and with all do respect doesn't mean anything.

I do have a solid page with good copy, been up for a year and is top of the engines...my page rank with that sucks. So I agree with Cygnus that I'm not going to give myself an ulcer over it...I just want to know why people facinate over it. Its hard to get business sometimes...having to deal with competetors that are drowning your prospective clients with garbage is even tougher.

Oh Qwerty...very solid reply! That is exactly what I was looking for! Oh and I meant to type SEOs, not SEs.

Thanks so much for the very useful response from everyone!

Hypnztd3

[awall19]

all I was really trying to say is that without pagerank the quality of their results would drop off and it would be easier to spam their search engine

no its not everything, but it does count to some extent...it is just a simple feedback loop. usually the businesses which have the best feedback loops are the most sucessful

Google is a perfect example of this

[hypntzd3]

ya...I think I was just fustrated with the whole "PR IS EVERYTHING AND WITHOUT IT YOU WON'T RANK" comments that I have been gettting from people and have seen (or gotten the impression) on this forum.

Also very interesting points everyone. Qwerty your reply about SEO pushing PR makes a lot of sense to me...of course I don't know if its just because I like the answer?!

Anyway...again I take my hat off to all of your for sharing your knowledge and I appreciate you sharing the wealth (so to speak).

Hypntzd3

[Jill]

ya...I think I was just fustrated with the whole "PR IS EVERYTHING AND WITHOUT IT YOU WON'T RANK" comments that I have been gettting from people and have seen (or gotten the impression) on this forum.

Um...huh? Surely you must be thinking of some other forum, because I can't remember any posts (by the people in the know here) that have ever, ever, ever said that PR is everything and without it you won't rank!

Either that or you've misunderstood something.

We do say that in order to be listed in Google at all (not ranking highly, but listed) you need some links back to you. But that's not the same thing as saying that PR is everything.

From your first post, I think you may have a few misconceptions about what PageRank is. It has nothing to do with whether your site is optimized, it's strictly a factor of the links that point to your site. Every page that Google has in its database has some PageRank. (Regardless of what the toolbar says, that's not really PageRank.)

PageRank does help, as Ian said, when all else is equal. Which means it helps for competitive phrases because there are thousands of optimized sites for the same keyword phrases. But even then, it isn't always the trump card. Take my site for instance. Tons of great backlinks, and decent PR, but competing against hundreds of thousands of other SEO sites for the same keyword phrases! At that point it almost becomes a crap shoot on who will win in any given month.

Jill

[Ron Carnell]

Now I know lots of you will argue this, but again I have a site with a page rank of 5 not showing up in the first 100 results on the search engines ...

I doubt that's strictly true.

I certainly agree with everything that's been said. Page Rank is not terribly important. But neither is it entirely unimportant. If your PR 5 site isn't showing up in the first 100 results, that just means you're searching for keywords that haven't been optimized for that site. Try using the anchor text in all those backlinks and I suspect you'll find your site listed fairly near the top of those 100 results. Assuming it's not a generic term, you'll likely even be number one.

[Bill Slawski]

After reading Wyoming's posting and sharing of the interesting article: Is page rank dead?

I missed the discussion about this article, but I'd ask you to approach its conclusions with a healthy dose of skepticism. Or, do a little more research to see some of the many rebuttals that were placed online concerning its conclusions.

You may also want to do a search for the author's previous articles on Google, and the rebuttals to those, to get a sense of any possible bias...