Earned Links - PageRank Fluctuation - End Of PR As We Know It

**bigdoug** · 02-24-2006, 07:35 AM

"People in the know are no longer chasing after a higher Toolbar PR.," said SEO Company's Bob Mutch. "The emphasis has shifted to getting links from relevant sites that are in DMOZ and Yahoo directories, press releases, links in news sites, and the highly prized .gov and .edu links."

Mutch went on to pose two theories as to why PR has dropped, as in the past four PR exports.

"The main theory is that Google has changed the relationship scale between Real PR and Toolbar PR so that the 0 to 10 toolbar PR scale shows a lower value for the same Real PR value a Webpage has. This theory holds that this is being done to discourage people from acquiring links based strictly on the Toolbar PR value," he said.

"The other theory is that as there are more pages in the Google index, the relationship scale between Real PR and Toolbar PR changes due to the increase of the pages in the index. With the increase of pages it takes higher Real PR to get the same Toolbar PR."

SEO professional Andy Hagans downplays the importance of PageRank, placing more emphasis on link building.

"With each new Google update, it is apparent that PageRank counts for less, while other factors (trust, age, authority links) count for more," said Hagans.

"Really, the importance of the green pixels is now negligible, aside from a very rough indication of a site's link popularity and assurance that it isn't banned in Google. But as long as Google continues to show PageRank in the toolbar, it will never âdie' in the public consciousness."

At Submitawebsite Inc., we really don't put a whole lot of emphasis on PageRank for most clients, as different industries have different website popularity requirements needed to attain high search engine rankings. In our industry, the requirements to attain top rankings are very high, whereas a website looking to sell electrical semi-conductors does not need to be as concerned about having thousands of back-links, or multiple high PR sites pointing to them.

For us, PageRank is a good indicator of a website's online value as seen by Google, but our concerns for a website with regards to assisting them with quality white-hat Natural Search consulting rely more in the area of traditional best practice SEO recommendations, unique content creation, press release and article distribution, and other forms of white-hat link building. PageRank has simply taken a backseat in the minds of our staff and clients.

It seems that the industry consensus is that PageRank really has taken a back seat, at least within the white-hat community, and that one should not be too concerned about their new PageRank score. Using PageRank as a measurement of a website's popularity in the search engines still makes sense, and if a site has PageRank it will likely help your rankings if it links to you, especially if the website has high PageRank. Based on my read, and the read of the top players in the industry, website owners and webmasters need to stay focused on valuable content and being linked with authority sites. PageRank, really at the end of the day is just the icing on the cake.

At the same time, understanding that PageRank doesn't have the same value as it once did, it can still be used for strategic link development.

"Instead of chasing PageRank I like to find the low PageRank sites that rank well in the search results," says SEOBook author Aaron Wall. "What links do they have? Why are they ranking so well? If you get the types of links that those sites have, and if you have a compelling website that other sites actually want to link to the PageRank will naturally fall into place without you developing a wonky link profile trying to artificially boost your PageRank."

Veteran link building expert, Eric Ward, agrees that trust and link building, not chasing PageRank, are the most important parts of the search strategy.

"My link building efforts are driven by subject affinity, and trust--the trust that the user will have for the site the link appears on," said Ward.

"You do not have to have a bunch of (or for that matter ANY) high PageRank links in order to rank well for a specific search phrase (in more niche markets). You need to have a handful of perfectly placed subject specific trusted links. This is the core reason why I love but don't worry about PageRank."

For the rest of the article go here
http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060221TheImportanceOrUNOfPageRank.html#Mutch

This article contributed to and edited by Jason Lee Miller

**Mano70** · 02-24-2006, 11:35 AM

Since you are speaking of PR:
http://www.jimwestergren.com/google-...ence-findings/

The few tests I have done seems to prove this article correct, but as always, I may be wrong..

He has also started a thread at Cre8:
http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forum...howtopic=34407

**dazzlindonna** · 02-24-2006, 12:23 PM

Yes, from my short analysis, it looks like Jim is correct also. The information that Jim posts about is very enlightening. If you consider PR to be non-important, then the Jim info is no big deal, I guess. But if you consider PR to be at all important, then the Jim info is really great info to have. FWIW, I consider PR to be important enough to use the Jim info, but not so-all-encompassing-important that I focus on it much. Just one of many pieces of the puzzle - and now that puzzle piece is much more in focus.

**SEO_AM** · 02-24-2006, 05:12 PM

DD... I just had a PR6 go to a 5. A year or two ago I would have sliced my wrists, but today, knowing what we know, it really does not matter that much. SERPs and conversions is where it is at.

**dazzlindonna** · 02-24-2006, 06:17 PM

You're right seo_am. It really doesn't matter that much. But what if it had gone from a 6 to a 1 or a 6 to a 0, and you didn't know that for 3 months? Had you known, you might have investigated what links you had potentially lost. Or why you might have been penalized? It is only one piece of the puzzle, but Google still uses it for something, and there's no reason we should ignore it 100%. Use every piece of information, use every tool that might help. Each piece of the puzzle carries its own weight - great or small - but weight nevertheless.

**SEO_AM** · 02-24-2006, 07:31 PM

The components or values that G uses to calculate PR have importance NOT the PR value itself. If the visible PR value (toolbar PR) rises or falls without affecting SERPs positioning there is really no discernible affect to the site owner unless links are being sold dependent upon page PR value.

On the other hand, if my SERPs are falling but my PR remains as before or is increasing... What then? PR may be an indicator, but it is only one indicator of a page's popularity as measured by an algo developed by Google. Bottomline are your SERPs and conversions. PR is nice, but more for bragging rights. Use PR only as an indicator NOT as your goal. Track your SERPs and analyze that performance against your goals.

**dazzlindonna** · 02-24-2006, 07:45 PM

I agree with what you're saying. But I think you're missing my point. Ah well, that's ok too.

**Jim Westergren** · 02-25-2006, 12:40 AM

Hi,

I am the author of that article and would like to add something.

I agree that PR is not a goal and just an indicator of one of perhaps hundreds of factors determining the SERP ranking.

But now to the interesting part:

It has been reported that an increase in SERP ranking has occured at the same time the RK value increased which makes it very interesting. Another Swedish person reported that he has seen RK increasing the moment Google cached new backlinks.

A lot more testing and observations has to be done to bring it down to a valid conclusions and I will start that in 3-4 days, right now I am backlogging clients. If you are interested in sending me observation data I would appreciate that.

And so you know the BigDaddy DCs calculates the RK differently - that is already 100% proven.

I will report more data later.