106 replies to this topic

[Peter]

Randy,

I´m not confusing anything.

PageRank should be taken the way it is; a measure of backlinks. Google uses links to determine relevance.

I can start a new site today and link to it from one of my PR8 sites. As soon as everything is calculated it will have a PR7 if I do this "correctly" in an attempt to skew the PageRank number.

The example you give here proofs nothing. You simply give an example of a high PR page that can't rank high. But we´re not talking about that. What I said was that a low PR page has no chance on ranking high for very competitive phrases. That does not mean that just having a high PR will give you high rankings.

You need a high PR to have a chance on high rankings for a very competitive phrase. That´s just the way it is. (This does not mean that a high PR guarantees a high Rank)

Regards,

Peter

[Randy]

We'll just have to agree to disagree Peter. Though I'd be willing to bet that if we took the terms confusion out of the picture we'd be agreeing.

In my mind PR and true link popularity, especially combined with link text relevance, are two totally separate issues. One will get you nowhere in the SERPs, the other can and will get you to the top, regardless of how "big" the PR number they're assigning.

PR measures the (Google) perceived strength of backlinks. Nothing more, nothing less. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Steve Sardell]

PR measures the (Google) perceived strength of backlinks. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hi Randy,

Totally agree with the above and reading Peter's post I think he also concurs with the statement. Leaving out anchor text and the importance of thematic relevance for the moment, would please explain what you mean by "true link popularity"? Are you meaning a quantifiable number of backlinks and their PR? Appreciate it!

[Peter]

Randy Said:

PR measures the (Google) perceived strength of backlinks. Nothing more, nothing less.

Peter Said:

PageRank is just a measure of incomming links.

Peter Said:

PageRank should be taken the way it is; a measure of backlinks.

Yes we are agreeing, but you seem to be wanting to make a point out of PR and "true link popularity" not being the same thing. That's fine. But even if you have a great "true link popularity" you still need that PR high when you are targeting very competitive phrases.

That is all I have been saying, and every time somebody disagrees, they talk about something else.



Peter

[MCP]

Peter, PR is a result of links, yes. High rankings is also a result of links (combined with other stuff, but for this post let's just ignore on page optimization). This does not mean that high rankings is the result of PR.


Let do an exercise to clear your head about his issue.

Highrankings = diabetes
PR = tooth decay
links = candy

That is like saying because of eating candy, person A got tooth decay. True. Because of eating candy, person A got diabetes. True. Therefore diabetes is the result of tooth decay. False.

Let's change the words and re-read that sentence.
Because of links, person A got PR. True. Because of links, person A got Highrankings. True. Therefore Highrankings is the result of PR. False.


Let's try again by separating the three items in question into 2 categories.

Category One = cause
Category Two = effect

Links = cause
PR = effect
High rankings = effect

Links causes 2 things to happen. Neither thing that happens causes the other to happen. I hope you are more clear now, because this is a 5 page post and I haven't seen anybody say that they agree with you yet.

[Peter]

This does not mean that high rankings is the result of PR.

Who said that is is? I didn't!

What I said was that in order to rank high for very competitive phrases, you need a high PR. That does not mean that high rankings is the result of PR.

Let do an exercise to clear your head about his issue.

My head is perfectly clear about this issue. Everytime somebody says something about PR people don't read what is actually said, but they assume that the writer says that PR is the holy grale of high rankings. I never said that, so don't try to make it look like I did.

Again:

In order to rank high for very competitive phrases you need a high PR. This does not mean that the high PR will give you high rankings. It means that the high PR is a condition in order to rank high for very competitive phrases. Without it,. you won't rank high for very competitive phrases.

Please notice: for very competitive phrases!!!

PR is a direct result of backlinks. High Rankings are NOT a direct result of backlinks.

Backlinks have many properties and PR is one of them. You can have 1000 backlinks with the perfect anchor texts and all, if they give you a PR of 2 you won't rank high for a very competitive phrase.

That should not be so difficult to understand.

Regards,

Peter

[Jill]

The point is that even on highly competitive keyword phrases, lower PR pages very often rank higher than higher PR pages. There is no overall correlation.

Jill

[Peter]

Jill,

Give me an example please. I have been investigating that and have not found that that is the case. The only thing that I have found is that new pages which don't have a PR yet, but that are indexed get high rankings, but they lose these ranks the moment they get a PR score. (unless of course if that PR score is high enough)

Peter

[Jill]

Look at the results for search engine optimization. There are a bunch of sites on page 3 that are PR 8. Many with PR6 are on page 1.

Jill

[Peter]

Jill,

You still assume that I said that PR determines rank order, but that I never said that.

Perhaps it's difficult to explain what I mean. The thing is that sometimes I get questions from people that don't understand why they don't have a top10 position. Then the situation is like this:

On-the-page optimization is good
Off-the-page optimization is good
PR of top 10 for their keyword phrases: lowest 6 highest 8
Their PR is 4.

In this situation you just need to do one thing. Get more backlinks so that the PR increases. Ofcourse that should be done properly.

In anyway,. in situations like this there is just one thing to do,. raise PageRank. And that is why I said that in order to rank high for very competitive phrases you need a high PR.

If you believe that it is possible to get a PR 4 page to rank in the top10 in situations like that, please share with us how to do that.

Regards,

Peter

[qwerty]

Let's keep in mind that PR is an indication, not a goal. High PR means some combination of many backlinks, backlinks from high-PR pages, and backlinks from pages with fewer outbound links.

In other words, Peter's advice to people in the situation he describes ought to be "get more backlinks" rather than "raise your PR". And I'm sure Peter would agree with me that backlinks from thematically-similar pages, and backlinks using descriptive anchor text are going to help rankings a great deal, even if they're coming from pages which are not going to significantly affect PR.

In other words, a link that's the only outbound link on a PR9 page, pointing to a page that sells flowers, is going to raise your PR, but if the link's anchor text is "scuba diving supplies" it's not going to help your rankings. A link to that page from a PR4 page with plenty of links is probably going to help your rankings more than the other will if the anchor text is "order flowers" and it's on a page about flowers.

[Jill]

In this situation you just need to do one thing. Get more backlinks so that the PR increases. Ofcourse that should be done properly.

And this is where you are still wrong.

Yes, you need to get backlinks. But not to increase PR, just to increase backlinks (and more so, the words in the backlinks).

Jill

[Peter]

Yes, you need to get backlinks. But not to increase PR, just to increase backlinks (and more so, the words in the backlinks).

Yes,. as I said, you need to do it properly,..

BUT if all that work doesn't give you enough PR,.. You won't rank in the top10.

Show me an example of a PR4 page that ranks in the top10 for a very competitive phrase in between 9 other pages with PR's of 6 and higher. I doubt you will find an example.

I'm sure Peter would agree with me that backlinks from thematically-similar pages, and backlinks using descriptive anchor text are going to help rankings a great deal, even if they're coming from pages which are not going to significantly affect PR.

Yes I agree 100%. PageRank is a condition, not a means. You need to do link building right to benefit from it. As I said before, the high PR won't get you a high ranking, but without the high PR it's impossible to rank high for very competitive phrases.

I know I am going against a lot of people's religion, but if you read what I am saying correctly you will notice that what I am saying is not that far from what you believe.

Most of you try to prevent people from focusing too much on pagerank and you are right. What started this whole discussion was me saying that for very competitive phrases you need a high PR. Almost everybody replied saying I was wrong, but forgot about this little condition I set: "for very competitive phrases". Without this condition I agree with all of you, but with this condition I stick to what I said: You need high PR.

Obviously, 1 backlink from a PR 10 page will give you a high PR, but not high rankings,.. that would be a bad example of link building.

Regards,

Peter

[MCP]

Peter, this is getting annoying. There is a reason why we all are saying your are wrong, and nobody yet has agreed with you. You don't NEED high PR to compete for any phrase, competitive or not. Chances are you will find mostly high PR pages on those competitive phrases, because chances are they are doing a lot of link building.

sorry in advance for the capital letters
IT IS NOT THE PR THAT GIVES THEM RANKS and YOU CAN GET VERY HIGH PR AND STILL RANK POORLY and YOU CAN HAVE LOW PR AND STILL RANK VERY WELL.

You are putting the cart before the horse by thinking high PR gets you high ranks. high PR gets you a little more green in your TPR and probably a few more link exchange requests from spammers.

[Peter]

Peter, this is getting annoying.

Yes,.. this is certainly getting annoying. How many times have I said that a high PR is not the reason for high rankings? Just read back and you will see that I said that many times. BUT what do you say? You say:

IT IS NOT THE PR THAT GIVES THEM RANKS and YOU CAN GET VERY HIGH PR AND STILL RANK POORLY and YOU CAN HAVE LOW PR AND STILL RANK VERY WELL.

You are putting the cart before the horse by thinking high PR gets you high ranks. high PR gets you a little more green in your TPR and probably a few more link exchange requests from spammers.

I mean,.. what the ....... Am I stupid? I am saying all the time that the high PR is NOT what gives them high rankings, yet you claim that I do say that. WHY?????

If you all are so convinced then proof me wrong:
Show me an example of a PR4 page that ranks in the top10 for a very competitive phrase in between 9 other pages with PR's of 6 and higher.

And please don't come up with a PR 0 page in between 9 other pages with a PR of 6 or higher. That page will drop out a soon as it gets PR unless it gets a high PR as well.

Proof me wrong,... Don't think I make these things up,. I have been researching this for some time and I just can't find any examples of low PR pages ranking high for very competitive phrases. So I am asking you,... Proof me Wrong! I don't mind being wrong, but I want to be proven wrong and not just because some people (with all do respect) say that I am.



Peter