51 replies to this topic

[Karri]

I would like someone to clarify this if possible (I know PR is a topic of debate ....).

If it is generally not recommended by SEOs to get hung up on Page Rank of their optimized sites, is it still important to find backlinks from sites/directories with good PR?

I have seen so much conflicting information on this subject and would like to figure out if I should just punt my Google Toolbar once and for all or if I should be paying attn to PR when researching backlinks for a client's site?

Humbly,
Karri

[qwerty]

I use PR for one thing, basically. If I know a site's been around for a while, and I know it has at least some backlinks, then seeing a white or grey bar is an indication that something might be wrong -- the site may have been penalized, and that's something I'd want to know about.

[Michael Martinez]

Given that so many SEOs seek to inflate the PR of their own sites and/or the sites of their clients, and that Google only updates the Toolbar PR report about once every three months, I see no value in the number whatsoever.

It doesn't provide any information about whether a link from the site in question is worth having or not.

In my opinion, if you're going to seek links from sites on the basis of PR, you probably only want links from sites with PR greater than 8 and PR less than 2, as these sites are the ones most likely to reflect natural PR valuations (at some point in the past).

However, if you don't take other factors into consideration when seeking links, you're pretty much wasting your time.

ON EDIT: qwerty makes a good point, but every now and then Google breaks the Toolbar reporting function, so you cannot always use that color indicator as a guide to whether a site may be having problems.

[mcanerin]

Like Bob mentions, there are still some uses. I also usually consider a PR between 4-6 to be fairly accurate when looking for link partners, etc When it's above or below that I start to wonder why.

One other use for PR is in the area of duplicate content - if there are 2 or more places with the same content (ie an article that someone wrote that is reprinted several times) then usually the version with the most PR is the one that is shown.

There are a few other times as well. PR isn't used for ranking directly anymore as much as it's used for "tiebreakers", where, if everything else is equal, Google will usually use PR to break the tie, in my experience.

In short it's nice to have, but not a primary factor anymore.

Ian

[mcanerin]

In my opinion, if you're going to seek links from sites on the basis of PR, you probably only want links from sites with PR greater than 8 and PR less than 2, as these sites are the ones most likely to reflect natural PR valuations (at some point in the past).

That's completely different from my experience - often (not always) the PR7+ crowd spammed or purchased their way there, and naturally a PR0 could either be a gem in the rough, or a banned site - I'd want to check further before trusting or dismissing it.

However, if you don't take other factors into consideration when seeking links, you're pretty much wasting your time.

Agreed!


Ian

[Karri]

Thank you!

Glad I can put this debate in my mind to rest. I'll be printing this thread off for reference!

Thanks again,
Karri

[amabaie]

PR can also be one way toi measure the value of an internal page. Instead of checking how many pages internally link to the page, the PR can tell you something. If the page shows up all white or gray, it is either a new page, a page that is poorly linked to (and therefore of little value), or a page that is off-limits to the robots in the robots.txt file .

I think the problem with focusing on PR is when it is esteemed higher than relevance. I look for relevant links (that's my shopping list), but if I am making an exchange with a page of higher or lower PR, I usually try to even things out by throwing an extra link into the mix (fair price). As such, PR serves as currency, rather than as shopping list of what to buy.

[Michael Martinez]

That's completely different from my experience - often (not always) the PR7+ crowd spammed or purchased their way there, and naturally a PR0 could either be a gem in the rough, or a banned site - I'd want to check further before trusting or dismissing it.

No real disagreement with you, actually, but I chose greater than PR 8 because most of the PR 9 and 10 sites I know about are true, legitimate, well-known, highly documented serious resource sites...like Yahoo! (heehee).

The less-than-PR 2 suggestion is based on the fact that most of the people I see reporting their own PR in the forums tend to hang in the PR 2 to PR 8 range, most of that crowd being in the PR 4 to PR 6 range.

I just would not trust a Toolbar PR rating for determining from whom I wanted a link in the least. But, if someone held a gun to my head and said, "Pick a method or else", that is the method I would choose. I simply would not want links from sites that are midrange PR values because they seem to be the most prolific PR chasers.

I don't doubt there are a few sneaky sites that have slunk past PR8, but most of the PR chasers are not getting that high.

Maybe it would be a good thing if they did (but statistically that's an impossibility -- people don't seem to realize that).

[Ron Carnell]

I believe PR, while not directly a factor in ranking, is nonetheless still important. How many pages you have in your site is far less important than how many pages you have in the index, and that is still largely controlled by the perceived importance of any given page. The links on a page become much more savory to Googlebot when the page itself is deemed important. This is particularly true, I think, when the links are dynamic with multiple parameters, or when a deep site architecture leads to pages widely separated from an externally-linked source.

Further, though I've seen no evidence to support it (and don't expect I ever will), one might presume that anchor text is weighted more heavily from an important page than from one of lesser importance?

However, having argued for the continued importance of PageRank, I think it's equally important to argue for the impermanence of PageRank.

Most of today's PR8 sites were once PR2 sites, and some few of today's PR2 sites will one day become PR8 sites. I don't think we should evaluate the importance of a page by how many links it has today, because that number is can easily go up (or down) six months down the road. Good pages with good traffic will attract links, pure and simple. If the current PR doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the page, it just means we're getting in on the ground floor.

[Justilien]

Only benefit I can see is getting your site crawled more frequently. I used PR as litmus test that a page “maybe” in good standing with Google. Yet there are many pages with Green and No Cache.

[qwerty]

Further, though I've seen no evidence to support it (and don't expect I ever will), one might presume that anchor text is weighted more heavily from an important page than from one of lesser importance?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were true. However, I don't think PR represents the importance of a page anymore. That was the idea behind it, but it's been gamed so much that now it's just a reflection of links -- how many, and where from. That used to mean importance, but it no longer does, so PR is a measure of nothing but PR.

I hope they still understand that some pages are more important than others, but I can't believe PR is the indicator of that importance.

[Jill]

However, I don't think PR represents the importance of a page anymore

Yes it does, it has to by it's very nature.

Of course it could be artificially inflated importance, but that's another story.

I do have to laugh though when I see some seo company sites that I never even heard of and haven't been around all that long magically have like a PR7!

My site has been around forever and has tons and tons of natural links that were never solicited and is only a pr6. It has got to be tough to get a pr7, is all I can think! (Not that I care, but when I see them, I pretty much know 90% of them are articifial 7's.)

[Cosita]

I'm not sure if PR really means anything.

My main site is a PR5. I do lots to market that particular site -- linking, writing articles and all that jazz. And my site is on page one for my main keyword and has decent rankings for additional keywords (pages 2-3).

My third and fourth sites I haven't put any effort in. None. No linking. No on or off page optimization. The PR for both is 4.

Boy, I believe I had a point when I started writing this post but can't figure out what it is. But since I took the time to type my silliness, I'm posting it.



Cosita

[qwerty]

Yes it does, it has to by it's very nature.

Of course it could be artificially inflated importance, but that's another story.

I do have to laugh though when I see some seo company sites that I never even heard of and haven't been around all that long magically have like a PR7! 

My site has been around forever and has tons and tons of natural links that were never solicited and is only a pr6.  It has got to be tough to get a pr7, is all I can think! (Not that I care, but when I see them, I pretty much know 90% of them are articifial 7's.)

See, that's not importance. It's an illusion of importance created by getting tons of links, thereby fooling a system which was designed to reward genuine importance, but the designers of which made the mistake of basing too much on links. If you look at a PR8 page as "important" even though its links are all from some trapezoidal linking thingie strategy then you're just falling for something as phony as a doctor of the history of rubber giving you advice on psychopharmacology, or a stock the price of which has risen because someone filthy rich put out a rumor that he wanted to buy a controlling share of it somehow representing the "value" of a company.

[Debra]

Karri- if by using the toolbar you save yourself some time or find yourself looking more closely at a site because of what you don't see... then it's a tool worth keeping around IMO. If we use the toolbar as a quick gauge, stands to reason Google does too!