Is PR Important?... Heck Yes!

[Derek S]

Every day or so I come on here and see threads asking about when google will update PR.

Often many people jump in and dismiss the question all together and feel the need to spread secondhand advice they have heard and not proved themselves...

"Don't worry about PR"

Let me attempt to end this advice once and for all...

"PR IS IMPORTANT AND NECESSARY"

PR (in a nutshell) is how important Google sees a web page. Getting a link from a page Google thinks is important, pointing to a page you want to rank, will boost your rankings in Google.

PR is updated every day in real time (almost) but the only way for us to visually gauge and track our progress, is with Google's PR Checker.

If i'm building backlinks on PR6 pages I would like to make sure i'm not waisting my time on a page that will really show to be demoted to PR4.

If my links are on pages that used to be PR4 and are now PR6 I will get a huge boost in rankings and the only way to see how this happened is seeing what links increased in PR after a google PR update.

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Why Should I Care About MY Index Page's PR?

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Because the PR of a page shares its "PR juice" with the pages it (dofollow) links to... Every page on your site linking from the main page gets some PR juice, increasing the PR of your internal pages.

Every internal page links back to your index page and is still a backlink. So the more PR your index page can pass to your internal pages, the more boost in rankings you will see to that index page.

When google does the update you can see and track your progress. If you are selling links it also provides proof of how important Google sees your site. No one pays for a PR8 page link when google says its PR is 7... even though the actual PR of the page could indeed be 8.


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When Does Google Update It's Toolbar PR?

==================================

Usually 4 times a year but the actual month is impossible to predict as there is no regular schedule Google follow (Oh how I wish there was!)

A site a fellow warrior brought to my attention was Google Pagerank Update September 2010 But I have yet to verify its accuracy.


There you have it! Next time people make comments about PR updates not being important send them to this thread.

Warriors with actual self tested, first hand advice please feel free to chime in.

Cheers

[miranon]

I have seen emd's that were registered a few days ago with 0 backlinks outrank wikipedia pages with PR4-5. How in this example is PR important?

[Derek S]

Thats Google's Algorithm for new sites. It gives them a temporary boost in rankings for a few weeks or months (in extreme examples) but they eventually rank where they should and have to backlink to get back into that position.

Post links the the examples you have.

[Spot the Ball]

Couldnt agree more with this.

This is exactly why a higher PR site will find it easier to rank a page than a site without PR, assuming all other things are equal.

Ask yourself why you see Eza articles ranking high in serps with little backlinking or why posts from this very forum can rank high within hours with no backlinking.

[paulgl]

People constantly say their PR2 site beat a PR6 site or some other scenario.
Then claim PR does not matter.

What they fail to realize is that PR still played a part.

They have their PR2 site optimized for the exact keyword1+keyword2

The PR6 site has authority for keyword2 and all variations.

So the PR6 site still shows up, just below the site better optimized
for that given keyword on that given search.

Do a search for the keyword2, and that PR2 site won't even register
a blip. But they never do that. That would kill their theory.

People think a PR2 site and a PR6 site are somehow equal in all respects.
They are not.

Google also looks at quality of backlinks in regard to that PR.

If a PR6 site got there with thousands of low level links, no high level,
and that PR2 site have a handful of high PR, high authority backlinks,
based on that the PR2 site may win.

But in all these discussions, PR comes into play.

The higher the PR, the more probability you have of being listed on top.
For your optimized keywords, that is.
The higher PR sites get first consideration. If one is found, the results
don't even get to lower PR sites. PR is used in the search engine sifting
process.

Paul

[Mike Anthony]

Yes some people do overstate that PR is of no value but I think what others mean is that its really pointless to keep checking your PR. If you are doing what you should be then you don't need to. To the OP If you get a link on a PR6 you take it. Its pointless to worry about it going down

[Dellco]

I also agree, PR is important. Google is just trying to wind people up by saying it is not important, and yet they haven't done away with the entire system, because their entire system IS still based on PR.

[warriorkay]

Many don't know that the PAGE in Page Rank
was coined after the name of one of the
founders,

Kingsley

[cooljazz]

strongly agree with you

Originally Posted by paulgl

People constantly say their PR2 site beat a PR6 site or some other scenario.
Then claim PR does not matter.

What they fail to realize is that PR still played a part.

They have their PR2 site optimized for the exact keyword1+keyword2

The PR6 site has authority for keyword2 and all variations.

So the PR6 site still shows up, just below the site better optimized
for that given keyword on that given search.

Do a search for the keyword2, and that PR2 site won't even register
a blip. But they never do that. That would kill their theory.

People think a PR2 site and a PR6 site are somehow equal in all respects.
They are not.

Google also looks at quality of backlinks in regard to that PR.

If a PR6 site got there with thousands of low level links, no high level,
and that PR2 site have a handful of high PR, high authority backlinks,
based on that the PR2 site may win.

But in all these discussions, PR comes into play.

The higher the PR, the more probability you have of being listed on top.
For your optimized keywords, that is.
The higher PR sites get first consideration. If one is found, the results
don't even get to lower PR sites. PR is used in the search engine sifting
process.

Paul

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Derek S

Thats Google's Algorithm for new sites. It gives them a temporary boost in rankings for a few weeks or months (in extreme examples) but they eventually rank where they should and have to backlink to get back into that position.

Post links the the examples you have.

Why is this PR0 site #2 in the SERPs for the keyword "gain weight"? This site has 2 pages, an Index page & a Privacy Policy.

The #3 site is PR4, has 318 pages.

PR doesn't matter in the SERPs!

BTW, the #2 site has been holding for months, I've been watching him.

[Google.me]

nope!!!!!still to short!

[seoweb2000]

PR and ranking are two completely different things.
I can have a PR5 site with 10 backlinks simply by buying back links on some PR6+ sites. But the PR5 site would have no ranking in the search results and would be out rank by PR0 sites.
So my question is which one is more valuable, the PR5 with no traffic or the PR0 with traffic?

[Dellco]

Originally Posted by yukon

Why is this PR0 site #2 in the SERPs for the keyword "gain weight"? This site has 2 pages, an Index page & a Privacy Policy.

The #3 site is PR4, has 318 pages.

PR doesn't matter in the SERPs!

BTW, the #2 site has been holding for months, I've been watching him.

That site is ranked quite down for Google.ca and Google.co.uk

The PR 4 site on the other hand is well ranked in all.

Also the 1 page site may not convert any buyers at all, I reckon his bounce rate will be quite high.

It's equally important to convert traffic, not just to get traffic.

[Derek S]

Originally Posted by yukon

Why is this PR0 site #2 in the SERPs for the keyword "gain weight"? This site has 2 pages, an Index page & a Privacy Policy.

The #3 site is PR4, has 318 pages.

PR doesn't matter in the SERPs!

BTW, the #2 site has been holding for months, I've been watching him.

Im not done yet with analyzing the sites backlinks but only 10% into my analysis I already see that gain-weight-muscle-fast.com has fewer higher PR links with 80% of the links coming to that site being PR0-NA... Plus now in my test it shows 75% of all that sites links are coming from the same IP.

Its obvious to me but I can PM you a more detailed report once I'm done reconstructing the sites ranking.

[dburk]

Hi Derek,

You articulated your point quite well, and somewhat convincingly, however I find it misses the mark a bit. I could use the precise argument you did, to make the counter point to your assertion. Your almost convincing argument leaves out the most essential element to ranking and that is the hole in your logic.

PageRank on it's own has no direct influence on ranking in SERP. Instead it is used as a weighting factor on the influence inbound links have on your page's relevancy score. And while your homepage could influence the ranking of internal pages, if properly linked, and internal pages may influence the ranking of your homepage, this does not occur unless you optimize your links for relevancy. The PR of the page is only important as a weighting factor of that influence on relevancy.

So while a properly optimized site may benefit from PR in the manner you described, you may also not benefit at all from that same PR if you do not craft your links in a manner that exploits the weighting potential the PR may have on relevancy scores. PR is not the important factor in ranking, relevancy is and PR without the proper application of relevancy is useless.

PR is only one of many factors that weight the influence of relevancy signals. It's useful to recognize the most important signals of relevancy and understand the difference between those signals and factors that weight their influence.

[Derek S]

Originally Posted by dburk

So while a properly optimized site may benefit from PR in the manner you described, you may also not benefit at all from that same PR if you do not craft your links in a manner that exploits the weighting potential the PR may have on relevancy scores. PR is not the important factor in ranking, relevancy is and PR without the proper application of relevancy is useless.

Could not agree more with what you say,

My OP is based on the fact that you care about PR for ranking in Google. Based on that assumption you can also assume that your links will be crafted for SEO.

For a page linking to you to be relevant, all it needs is your link anchor text to have the keyword you're trying to rank for on it.

A site with 1000 links with the anchor text "Golf Swing" will almost always rank higher than if the same site had the same 1000 links with the anchor text "Golf Slice" for the Google keyword Golf swing.

Keep in mind that "SITE THEME" is an entire different story for another thread.

[yaniman]

OK I agree with your points. PR is also an important factor in determining SERP of a website in Google. Though I saw many exceptions most of the time high PR websites neat low PR websites in Google. I understand why u said this.

[izapharry]

yes pr is also important which shows you site is very trusted

[seoforu]

Most people would say PR does not matter but I would say that PR does matter and this is the way Google ranks a page and thus high PR can get you high rankings.

[ThelemaqueTip]

How can i make my website rank in google?

[seovcim]

Hello friends...

PR is important and necessary

PR (in a nutshell) is how important Google sees a web page. Getting a link from a page Google thinks is important, pointing to a page you want to rank, will boost your rankings in Google.

PR is updated every day in real time (almost) but the only way for us to visually gauge and track our progress, is with Google's PR Checker.

Thanks.........

[mavericace]

There is no doubt that Googlers involved with webmasters want to remove the PageRank values from the toolbar. In fact, PageRank was removed from Webmaster Tools last year after concern of PageRank became overwhelming for many. Since before 2007 Google wanted to remove PageRank from the toolbar. In fact, then Matt Cutts personally wanted it gone, but I guess he failed? And my new favorite Googler, Tomer Honen tweeted, "And that's why I don't use Twitter that often - only 140 characters... Get over PageRank!"

As you can see, I did not make a distinction here between real PageRank and Toolbar PageRank.

[Mcrofts]

PR Means Nothing I'll Pay $100 for a PR7 Website if anyone has one
{Fingers Crossed, Someone wants to }

[robertransey]

P R are essential in order to find out the general unpopularity of your site. It is an necessity factor to turnaround traffic towards your web site.

[Titan86]

Originally Posted by robertransey

P R are essential in order to find out the general unpopularity of your site.

In that case, I don't think I want to know...