Pagerank is a decoy. Take it seriously at your own peril.

[orvn]

It took me some time (more than I would like to admit) to learn this. Sadly my discovery process was wrought with haphazard trail-and-error.

Years ago (like say, back in 2003), Pagerank was awesome. The absolute measure of authority.

Any simple Google search today can demonstrate that pagerank isn't in the slightest the measure Google goes by when ranking pages.

Some call this measure "trust rank", although this is an unofficial term.

We don't really have any tools for measuring this trust rank, although you can make some pretty precise guesses based on a simple page analysis.

Let this be clear, and argue with me all you want, but I am, at this point, 100% sure that it's true.

PageRank is a distraction.
It's something tangible and Google knows you're focusing on it as a measure of a site's authority, but don't be fooled!

There are many other factors involved.
Factor's that are not publicly released.
Factors that you catch on to over time.

That is all.

[copernic]

I do agree with you, but I still think that backlinks play major rule in this regard. The thing is value of backlinks, like edu or gov. they are the things

[BarryWheeler]

Originally Posted by orvn

It took me some time (more than I would like to admit) to learn this. Sadly my discovery process was wrought with haphazard trail-and-error.

Years ago (like say, back in 2003), Pagerank was awesome. The absolute measure of authority.

Any simple Google search today can demonstrate that pagerank isn't in the slightest the measure Google goes by when ranking pages.

Some call this measure "trust rank", although this is an unofficial term.

We don't really have any tools for measuring this trust rank, although you can make some pretty precise guesses based on a simple page analysis.

Let this be clear, and argue with me all you want, but I am, at this point, 100% sure that it's true.

PageRank is a distraction.
It's something tangible and Google knows you're focusing on it as a measure of a site's authority, but don't be fooled!

There are many other factors involved.
Factor's that are not publicly released.
Factors that you catch on to over time.

That is all.

I see the light has come partially on for some people. Congrats!

Originally Posted by copernic

I do agree with you, but I still think that backlinks play major rule in this regard. The thing is value of backlinks, like edu or gov. they are the things

.gov and .edu are not "the things" many profess them to be. I've got sites with links from both, they do no better than sites without them.

In fact, one of my best performing sites has links only from other sites containing relevant content and they perform so much better!

[Mike Anthony]

Pagerank is not a decoy unless you emphasized only that. Its never been the end all and be all but it IS one really good indicator and I and most of the SEO world are certain about that.

Does Google value high content sites like Wikipedia and give them high PR. Sure. Does Google trust itself? Sure. Gives themselves a PR 10 or 9. Many sites that we know have high authority with Google have high PR.

Know any sites that Google is known to really trust that have a PR N/a or zero ?

be all and end all? NO. and its people over focusing on PR that has experts saying don't be mesmerized by it. but come one orvn you know what the masses will make of your PR is a decoy claims.

They will say that their forum profiles are just as good as High Pr pages because PR is a decoy,. They will say that dropping your links on all kinds of garbage article directories is good because PR is a ploy. They will say drop your links wherever you can and spam the world on NA pages because PR is a ploy.

I know you mean none of that but you know this forum. PR is one viable metric among many. If you pretend that any single metric is all there is then any metric can become a decoy.

[ishfishmial0]

The way I look at it is that no single thing is important in Google's ranking algo. Everything is given weight. I don't think the weight on PR is all that important.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Pagerank is not a decoy unless you emphasized only that. Its never been the end all and be all but it IS one really good indicator and I and most of the SEO world are certain about that.

Does Google value high content sites like Wikipedia and give them high PR. Sure. Does Google trust itself? Sure. Gives themselves a PR 10 or 9. Many sites that we know have high authority with Google have high PR.

Know any sites that Google is known to really trust that have a PR N/a or zero ?

be all and end all? NO. and its people over focusing on PR that has experts saying don't be mesmerized by it. but come one orvn you know what the masses will make of your PR is a decoy claims.

They will say that their forum profiles are just as good as High Pr pages because PR is a decoy,. They will say that dropping your links on all kinds of garbage article directories is good because PR is a ploy. They will say drop your links wherever you can and spam the world on NA pages because PR is a ploy.

I know you mean none of that but you know this forum.

Yep, wikipedia.

Anytime I create a new page on wiki the page is PR0 at best, when I first publish the page. I always build a few high PR5-6 internal wiki links pointing at the new page.

I've seen new wiki pages indexed before I could complete the Google search, on a Google Chrome Incognito browser. Built the new wiki page/internal-links with IE.

I've also seen a few high PR pages that only have images, on wiki. Kinda funny looking at a PR6 page that is one huge image.

A site like wiki will pass authority no matter the pagerank.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by yukon

I've seen new wiki pages indexed before I could complete the Google search, on a Google Chrome Incognito browser. Built the new wiki page/internal-links with IE.

bzzzt Wrong.

Who was talking about indexed? No one. Of course because Wikipedia has a High PR 9 home page and other high Pr pages google crawls it much more often. Thats a well known fact that Cutts has said repeatedly. They use the PR of the home page and other high PR pages to determine how often and how deep they will crawl that domain. Theres even a video on youtube where matt talks about this.

but seriously yukon how about reading the question again

Know any ----SITES------ that Google is known to really trust that have a PR N/a or zero ?

Now tell me again how wikipedia is a PR N/A or ZERO site? Wikipedia has MULTIPLE HIGH PR pages. there is a ton load of juice flowing through the entire site so I find no high PR page image or not surprising and it does nothing to answer that question in the affirmative.

A site like wiki will pass authority no matter the pagerank.

LOL. thats funny. You clean are missing all the PR juice that flows through that site to claim that authority is passed without regard to pagerank.

If anything the PR 9 that Wikipedia gets is a GREAT example of how pagerank is in step with some other metrics on authority and indication that clearly Google does give Hihg Pr to pages it trusts.

Come on people -----think.

[Fraggler]

Originally Posted by yukon

A site like wiki will pass authority no matter the pagerank.

Are new pages on Wikipedia orphaned? What you think is a PR0 on creation might actually by a PR3..4..or higher according to the Google Bot. You won't have any idea until the next toolbar PR update.

This lack of transparency makes it hard to know.

If I open the tap from a fast flowing pipe pointing to an empty bucket, that empty bucket will fill up pretty quickly. Checking it every 6 months doesn't change the fact it filled up almost instantly.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

bzzzt Wrong.

Who was talking about indexed? No one. Of course because Wikipedia has a High PR 9 home page and other high Pr pages google crawls it much more often. Thats a well known fact that Cutts has said repeatedly. They use the PR of the home page and other high PR pages to determine how often and how deep they will crawl that domain. Theres even a video on youtube where matt talks about this.

but seriously yukon how about reading the question again

Now tell me again how wikipedia is a PR N/A or ZERO site? Wikipedia has MULTIPLE HIGH PR pages. there is a ton load of juice flowing through the entire site so I find no high PR page image or not surprising and it does nothing to answer that question in the affirmative.

I read that twice.

Know any sites that Google is known to really trust that have a PR N/a or zero ?

The sites not going to have a PR anyways, the Index page might, but not the site as a whole.

PRn/a on wiki (page created Oct 24 2009)

Really I don't care much about the actual PR on a page like wiki. Like I said before a PRn/a will still pass authority with good internal linking + keyword anchor-text.

The authority is all that matters.

Granted, on most sites besides wiki, high PR is a good sign of an authority page for that site.

[orvn]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Pagerank is not a decoy unless you emphasized only that. Its never been the end all and be all but it IS one really good indicator and I and most of the SEO world are certain about that.

Does Google value high content sites like Wikipedia and give them high PR. Sure. Does Google trust itself? Sure. Gives themselves a PR 10 or 9. Many sites that we know have high authority with Google have high PR.

Know any sites that Google is known to really trust that have a PR N/a or zero ?

be all and end all? NO. and its people over focusing on PR that has experts saying don't be mesmerized by it. but come one orvn you know what the masses will make of your PR is a decoy claims.

They will say that their forum profiles are just as good as High Pr pages because PR is a decoy,. They will say that dropping your links on all kinds of garbage article directories is good because PR is a ploy. They will say drop your links wherever you can and spam the world on NA pages because PR is a ploy.

I know you mean none of that but you know this forum. PR is one viable metric among many. If you pretend that any single metric is all there is then any metric can become a decoy.

Sure it's an indicator. A raw measuring value. A hint, perhaps.
But it seems to me that there have been at least a few algorithms that supersede pagerank.

When I say "PR is a decoy", I don't mean to advocate forum profiles. I'm not saying PR is false and a downright lie. I'm saying it's a dangerous indicator. Sometimes an accurate one, sometimes not.

I've noticed that some pages with high PR don't seem to generate high value backlinks at all.

Generally, these are pages that have a lot of other irrelevant links and don't maintain a single niche (mostly pages that sell links and look a little spammy).

Now these pages I'm referring to aren't penalized in any way. They rank well- or at least alright- for what they happen to be targeting, but their backlinks seem to have been devalued.

This was my first major epiphany that made me start to treat PR with much caution.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by yukon

The sites not going to have a PR anyways, the Index page might, but not the site as a whole.

if so then why claim to be answering a question about a SITE with PR.
I mean Obviously I was referring to the home page and the pr flowing through the site so yes as a matter of fact a site can have PR if it has enough navigation and the pagerank is passed from one page to the next through that navigation. Happens all the time unless you don't know that PR flows through a site through links? but lets not play coy your attempt to answer it indicates you knew exactly what was meant.

PRn/a on wiki (page created Oct 24 2009)

And your evidence that that image is highly trusted by Google??

Like I said before a PRn/a will still pass authority with good internal linking + keyword anchor-text.

anchor text has nothing to do with authority. thats a relevance matrix. and you've done nothing but say it - no proof.

Granted, on most sites besides wiki, high PR is a good sign of an authority page for that site.

Even on wiki the authority is tied to pagerank. its right there on several pages staring at you. Now there also is what many people believe a domain trust factor. maybe that is what you are trying to get at but once again in the case you are looking at high pagerank home page url being associated with authority not in the absence of it so you have still failed to show what I said you could not show.

Thats because frankly you can't. In the case of wikipedia rather than pagerank being a decoy its a tell tale sign that the domain is trusted even in your scenario.

[BarryWheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

In the case of wikipedia rather than pagerank being a decoy its a tell tale sign that the domain is trusted even in your scenario.

Mike,

But aren't we talking about two related but yet different things?

It would make sense the "wikipedia" entity itself is awarded trust and authority based solely on it's actions. It has taken measures to protect who it links to (for the most part) and does try to put some quality into the type of content contained within.

Thus, the domain itself is seen as a trusted entity.

"Pagerank" or whatever we want to call it is a combination of how others trust that content based on linking to it etc?

This does support the notion about the authority of the domain in general providing and passing some of its trust, rather than just the link itself.

I've suspected and even blogged about this back some time ago, but never really setup or tried to prove the point.

Barry

[dburk]

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

Mike,

But aren't we talking about two related but yet different things?

It would make sense the "wikipedia" entity itself is awarded trust and authority based solely on it's actions. It has taken measures to protect who it links to (for the most part) and does try to put some quality into the type of content contained within.

Thus, the domain itself is seen as a trusted entity.

"Pagerank" or whatever we want to call it is a combination of how others trust that content based on linking to it etc?

This does support the notion about the authority of the domain in general providing and passing some of its trust, rather than just the link itself.

I've suspected and even blogged about this back some time ago, but never really setup or tried to prove the point.

Barry

Hi Barry,

I have to disagree with you, there is no evidence that I have ever found supporting domain authority. All measurable authority seems to flow through pages that are linked. Without this linkage, no authority flows. This strongly suggests there is absolutely no domain level influence.

Wikipedia is an excellent example of a website that does thorough internal linking. Without those links new pages would have squat for authority. I challenge you to produce a single page within the Wikipedia website that has authority without internal and/or external backlinks that can account for all of that authority being derived for that page.

Until you can find a single example to support your theory, I will remain skeptical.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by orvn

Sure it's an indicator. A raw measuring value. A hint, perhaps.
But it seems to me that there have been at least a few algorithms that supersede pagerank.

You lost me there. I don't know what you are referring to. Pagerank has almost always been a FACTOR in an algorithm not a separate algo standing on its own.

When I say "PR is a decoy", I don't mean to advocate forum profiles. I'm not saying PR is false and a downright lie. I'm saying it's a dangerous indicator. Sometimes an accurate one, sometimes not.

but an indicator is never dangerous. Its an individuals misunderstanding of an indicator that is dangerous. A girls beauty is not dangerous on its own but my exclusive focus on her beauty can be MY downfall. The only way data can be innaccurate is if you are claiming that Google tries to deceive you with PR. putting PR on a page it doesn't trust just to trick you (i'm sure here of all places there are some conspiracy theorists who will jump on that). The PR is always accurate its just whether you think that the PR is all that matters

I've noticed that some pages with high PR don't seem to generate high value backlinks at all.

Generally, these are pages that have a lot of other irrelevant links and don't maintain a single niche (mostly pages that sell links and look a little spammy).

I got you but then that has nothing to do with pagerank being a decoy. the "lot of other irrelevant links" is one of the things that diminishes pagerank. lots of people are finding this out with contextual backlink sellers (not all) that put even a hundred links on a page in their articles and then have side bars and navigation with even more links.

plus yes there stands a HIGH chance that there is an algo factors that are in place to identify bought links and a dead give away is 70 different subjects on the same page.

But then thats an additional factor that is read into the algo NOT pagerank being a decoy. I've seen zero evidence anywhere that a Pr 4 link from a relevant page is going to be less authoritative to a PR2 from the same kind of page. So as long as I take the other factors into consideration then PR is no decoy its a part of the package.

Now these pages I'm referring to aren't penalized in any way. They rank well- or at least alright- for what they happen to be targeting, but their backlinks seem to have been devalued.

because the links TO their site are not in question but their links from their sites are. Thats a standard OBL issue as well. having a ton load of links ON your site won't cause you to drop in the serps if they are to a good neighborhood and are not being sold but it will lower the strength of your votes to other sites.

This was my first major epiphany that made me start to treat PR with much caution.

Well maybe you were over focused on PR because I don't really see an epiphany about PR there at all. In fact in the cases you site it pretty standard stuff where outbound links diminishes the voting power to your site. Thats pagerank acting the way that it is supposed to. Unfortunately too many people focus on the PR number and don't even bother focusing on the outbound links. Thats why you have guys here willing to give high fives because they made a blog comment along with 800 other people on a PR5 page.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

Mike,

But aren't we talking about two related but yet different things?

It would make sense the "wikipedia" entity itself is awarded trust and authority based solely on it's actions. It has taken measures to protect who it links to (for the most part) and does try to put some quality into the type of content contained within.

Not sure the distinction you are making there. the only action an algo can see is the content and the links

"Pagerank" or whatever we want to call it is a combination of how others trust that content based on linking to it etc?

Not exactly. The pagerank has to start flowing from somewhere so there ARE (or were) sites with pagerank assumed in the algo at least at first. Now with some baselines it may be a bit different. Wikipedia may very well be one of those (very likely). So for these sites even more than the others that get pagerank from them the PR is directly tied to the authority or how Google trusts or trusted them.

This does support the notion about the authority of the domain in general providing and passing some of its trust, rather than just the link itself.

Even if it did then the pagerank rather than a decoy mirrors it. Again if anyone wants to show me an authority site or trusted domain that has a PR N/a or zero home page please do so.

[BarryWheeler]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Barry,

I have to disagree with you, there is no evidence that I have ever found supporting domain authority. All measurable authority seems to flow through pages that are linked. Without this linkage, no authority flows. This strongly suggests there is absolutely no domain level influence.

Wikipedia is an excellent example of a website that does thorough internal linking. Without those links new pages would have squat for authority. I challenge you to produce a single page within the Wikipedia website that has authority without internal and/or external backlinks that can account for all of that authority being derived for that page.

Until you can find a single example to support your theory, I will remain skeptical.

I wouldn't say "all measurable authority" but maybe a majority is directly related to the link itself. However, I think that the domain itself does provide some "influence" (rather than authority) maybe?

But even this "influence" would be negated by other factors such as number of outbound links to other sites (thus the decreased value of spamed .edu type links).

Maybe it's all a bit of the "secret sauce" that Matt Cutts tends to talk about at times.

I don't have any "hard proof" but I've remained curious as to how things affect overall ranking in general.

This is one thing leading to my curiousity:

Which Link Metrics Should I Use? Part 1 of 2 - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

Which Link Metrics Should I Use? Part 2 of 2 - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

It's almost 2:00 am here ... my brain may not be functioning 100% ... so if I'm not making sense, forgive me!

I do have to say, this is some of the most enjoyable conversations here on WF thus far!

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

I wouldn't say "all measurable authority" but maybe a majority is directly related to the link itself. However, I think that the domain itself does provide some "influence" (rather than authority) maybe?

I'm not deadset against it as Dburk and think there is probably some truth to it but I just don't see it being completely independent of pagerank because all the sites in question have PR5 and up home pages (and other pages). So that still leaves pagerank as a solid indicator

[dburk]

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

I wouldn't say "all measurable authority" but maybe a majority is directly related to the link itself. However, I think that the domain itself does provide some "influence" (rather than authority) maybe?

But even this "influence" would be negated by other factors such as number of outbound links to other sites (thus the decreased value of spamed .edu type links).

Maybe it's all a bit of the "secret sauce" that Matt Cutts tends to talk about at times.

I don't have any "hard proof" but I've remained curious as to how things affect overall ranking in general.

This is one thing leading to my curiousity:

Which Link Metrics Should I Use? Part 1 of 2 - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

Which Link Metrics Should I Use? Part 2 of 2 - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

It's almost 2:00 am here ... my brain may not be functioning 100% ... so if I'm not making sense, forgive me!

I do have to say, this is some of the most enjoyable conversations here on WF thus far!

Hi Barry,

I'm not surprised that you have chosen to cite Rand Fishkin. That is appropriate since the whole notion of domain authority seems to originate from his theory, which he tried to find a way to measure it but couldn't ( Hence, why I say it isn't measurable). He ended up just using the page authority metric as the only real measure of authority.

He chose to keep a separate metric that he labeled domain authority, but it is actually just the page authority from the home page, not a domain wide metric.

I have made several open challenges, in the past, for anyone on this forum to find a single example of measurable domain authority, as opposed to page authority. I'm still waiting and again call for anyone to share any evidence they can find that supports this theory. It seems to be a theory which many people has chosen to believe without a shred of evidence to support their belief.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

It seems to be a theory which many people has chosen to believe without a shred of evidence to support their belief.

thats a terrible misrepresentation.. I know you routinely brush off Fishkin and SEomoz but they DID in fact build a nice set of tools AND more importantly have built their own huge crawl database and extract data from that. People don;t cite them just because of their popularity. They earned that popularity - so there is no way you can claim they have not a shred of evidence.

Heres just one excerpt form the links Wheeler gave you

"number of linking route domains is similar in that it describes the number of links. But rather than saying this is how many unique pages have a link here, it's how many domains as a whole have a link here. Number of linking root domains is well correlated with Google's rankings generally indicating that domain diversity, getting links from lots of different places, is quite good. In fact, the best single metric, non-aggregated metric, that we've got to predict Google's rankings with correlation data is the number of Linking C-Blocks"

Now there is a lot of good evidence that getting a bunch of links from the same domain as opposed to getting it from several is less effective and what Fiskin is saying here is that it correlates with the data in his rather large database of sites. In that specific case it would tend to confirm that Google is tracking links from a domain or to be more specific to how a computer sees things - the ip address the domain is on.

Once you realize that Google is tracking this then it doesn't take much more to see the possibility that Google also uses that in other ways and yes I have seen sites rank where the incoming links don't seem to justify it. Now you can claim that there are always links you can't see and I agree but generally you do see how a site ranks when you check the backlinks. Either way Fishkin in those links makes it pretty clear he is talking about what the data from his huge link graph of the web shows NOT just making things up out of thin air.

So to clarify my position at least I can't say that it is some overwhelming metric that you have to agree with Fishkin on but that its just not accurate of fair to him to say that he doesn't have a shred of evidence.

My point to the this thread is that even if that were the case and there is a kind of domain effect in every example I could think of the PR of the home page and other high PR pages (mind you the REAL PR not tool bar PR that is not updated constantly) has SOME correlation so its not a decoy but a very nice clue when put within its context.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

thats a terrible misrepresentation.. I know you routinely brush off Fishkin and SEomoz but they DID in fact build a nice set of tools AND more importantly have built their own huge crawl database and extract data from that. People don;t cite them just because of their popularity. They earned that popularity - so there is no way you can claim they have not a shred of evidence.

Heres just one excerpt form the links Wheeler gave you

"number of linking route domains is similar in that it describes the number of links. But rather than saying this is how many unique pages have a link here, it's how many domains as a whole have a link here. Number of linking root domains is well correlated with Google's rankings generally indicating that domain diversity, getting links from lots of different places, is quite good. In fact, the best single metric, non-aggregated metric, that we've got to predict Google's rankings with correlation data is the number of Linking C-Blocks"

Now there is a lot of good evidence that getting a bunch of links from the same domain as opposed to getting it from several is less effective and what Fiskin is saying here is that it correlates with the data in his rather large database of sites. In that specific case it would tend to confirm that Google is tracking links from a domain or to be more specific to how a computer sees things - the ip address the domain is on.

Once you realize that Google is tracking this then it doesn't take much more to see the possibility that Google also uses that in other ways and yes I have seen sites rank where the incoming links don't seem to justify it. Now you can claim that there are always links you can't see and I agree but generally you do see how a site ranks when you check the backlinks. Either way Fishkin in those links makes it pretty clear he is talking about what the data from his huge link graph of the web shows NOT just making things up out of thin air.

So to clarify my position at least I can't say that it is some overwhelming metric that you have to agree with Fishkin on but that its just not accurate of fair to him to say that he doesn't have a shred of evidence.

My point to the this thread is that even if that were the case and there is a kind of domain effect in every example I could think of the PR of the home page and other high PR pages (mind you the REAL PR not tool bar PR that is not updated constantly) has SOME correlation so its not a decoy but a very nice clue when put within its context.

Hi Mike,

Correlation does not imply causation.

First let me say that I like Rand, he has done some great work in building consensus within the industry with his annual survey of SEO opinions. I have admired his link baiting skills for years. I just think he has bought into a notion that wasn't sound.

Indeed, when he tried to build a tool that would quantify domain authority, he wasn't able demonstrate a measurable effect beyond page level factors that would correspond to Google's search engine rankings. That is when he changed his tune and started to downplay the "importance" of domain authority in favor of "page authority".

While he never dropped the notion of domain authority, perhaps to save face since it was his signature SEO theory for a quite a while, about all he has to say about it these days is that it is not important.

Your whole argument seems to be based on correlation as causation, which simply isn't evidence, just flawed thinking. Correlation can suggest a cause, but is not evidence of a cause. Where is the evidence?

If the notion of "Domain Authority" as a SEO factor had any validity we should be able to find definitive evidence of it and it should be prominent since the highest authorities would theoretically have overtly measurable evidence. Yet, nobody seems to be able to point to any evidence, just the same old invalid "correlation as causation" conclusion.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Mike,

Your whole argument seems to be based on correlation as causation, which simply isn't evidence, just flawed thinking.

Well it would be if your strawman argument was accurate but alas as usual it isn't. I am making no whole argument for domain authority as you claim. I said point blank you don't need to believe Rand. here again since you conveniently let your eyes slide past it

So to clarify my position at least I can't say that it is some overwhelming metric that you have to agree with Fishkin on but that its just not accurate of fair to him to say that he doesn't have a shred of evidence.

My whole argument and specifically CLARIFIED was that the claim that there is not a "shred of evidence" at all is weak and unfair to his position. you can say that you come to a different conclusion but you can't say he made it up with no evidence whatsoever. Huge difference.

Correlation can suggest a cause, but is not evidence of a cause. Where is the evidence?

common misunderstanding - Evidence is not synonymous with having proven something. If that were the case then only one side would ever have evidence in the court of law. Proven is something you can determine AFTER weighing the evidence and I have indicated that you can weigh it differently but that there still is evidence.

If the notion of "Domain Authority" as a SEO factor had any validity we should be able to find definitive evidence of it and it should be prominent since the highest authorities would theoretically have overtly measurable evidence.

Utter Nonsense. if that were the case for every algo factor then everyone could know everything in Google's algo. It would be an open book. As it is because there are so many variables, pages,links and content situations its impossible to know all the factors in a serp. That rationale hardly rules out definitively domain issues as one factor. You are over reaching again.

nobody seems to be able to point to any evidence, just the same old invalid "correlation as causation" conclusion.

You don't really understand this SEO thing do you? We use correlation and causation routinely as indicators of what works. its the nature of the beast with a secret algo. If I put a link to a page and it rises in the serps then thats evidence. if I do it again thats more evidence. is it possible that some other factor I am unaware of is at work? Sure but its still evidence and until there are alternatives clearly shown its not unreasonable to assume that putting links to pages causes them to rise in the serps. Now rand sees some effect that a high authority site resting on a class C ip has on serps. I've seen some anecdotal evidence of my own that he might be onto something. Proven it? Probably not. Not a drop of evidence? way overstated and unfair to his position.

but in either case Pagerank somewhere on the IP isn't a decoy. Its a good sign and thats the only "whole argument" I have made in this thread despite your distortions.

[JamesGw]

Pagerank is really just a benchmark that shows a page's overall quality, including external factors. That doesn't mean it's extremely well optimized for any given keyword. I think it's a good idea to strive for a high pagerank, but it shouldn't be your sole concern.

There are a lot of ranking factors that pagerank doesn't take into account that can make or break your website. That said, everything that will increase your pagerank will also increase your position in the Google SERPs.

[BarryWheeler]

Originally Posted by JamesGw

Pagerank is really just a benchmark that shows a page's overall quality, including external factors. That doesn't mean it's extremely well optimized for any given keyword. I think it's a good idea to strive for a high pagerank, but it shouldn't be your sole concern.

There are a lot of ranking factors that pagerank doesn't take into account that can make or break your website. That said, everything that will increase your pagerank will also increase your position in the Google SERPs.

Welcome to the shark invested waters in this post!

[dburk]

Hi Mike,

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

As I said previously, "Your whole argument seems to be based on correlation as causation, which simply isn't evidence, just flawed thinking."

I'm sticking with that assertion as it seems to apply perfectly toward your reply.

For the sake of clarity please allow me to reiterate: "correlation" can never be considered a valid bases of evidence. At best it can be a hint of a possible relationship, but to consider it as "evidence" of causation is just flawed thinking.


And just for the fun of it, let me help you out with the real definition of a straw man argument:
Straw man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I made no attempt to reframe your assertions, I simply pointed out that your primary assertion was a Non sequitur argument.

[yukon]

Why are you so defensive about PR, & threads similar to this.

Your defensive with people that are on the same side of the fence as you are.

Anyways...

I don't care enough to go back & forth on something as petty as PR.

Good luck,

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

if so then why claim to be answering a question about a SITE with PR.
I mean Obviously I was referring to the home page and the pr flowing through the site so yes as a matter of fact a site can have PR if it has enough navigation and the pagerank is passed from one page to the next through that navigation. Happens all the time unless you don't know that PR flows through a site through links? but lets not play coy your attempt to answer it indicates you knew exactly what was meant.


And your evidence that that image is highly trusted by Google??

anchor text has nothing to do with authority. thats a relevance matrix. and you've done nothing but say it - no proof.

Even on wiki the authority is tied to pagerank. its right there on several pages staring at you. Now there also is what many people believe a domain trust factor. maybe that is what you are trying to get at but once again in the case you are looking at high pagerank home page url being associated with authority not in the absence of it so you have still failed to show what I said you could not show.

Thats because frankly you can't. In the case of wikipedia rather than pagerank being a decoy its a tell tale sign that the domain is trusted even in your scenario.

[Mike Anthony]

dburk you are wasting your time with links that I wouldn't even bother following. well aware of fallacies which is why I was able to point out yours. I'm content t o leave my rebuttal as well. Your post touches none of the obvious points yet again.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by yukon

Why are you so defensive about PR, & threads similar to this.

Yo yukon, its not really a matter of being defensive. I've already stated why I oppose these positions. They tend to lead people into thinking that the standard link building that leads to N/as and weak links is good because after all PR doesn't matter. I know that Orvn doesn't mean this but it is how many will take it.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

dburk you are wasting your time with links that I wouldn't even bother following. well aware of fallacies which is why I was able to point out yours. I'm content t o leave my rebuttal as well. Your post touches none of the obvious points yet again.

Oh.. okay Mike, I just want to clarify your point, you are going on record with the assertion that "correlation" is valid evidence of causation, right? If not, please clarify the "fallacy" in my assertion that you are referring to.

And the links are there for everyone else, I have no doubt that you have intimate knowledge of a complete list of fallacies to be used in debates.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

Oh.. okay Mike, I just want to clarify your point, you are going on record with the assertion that "correlation" is valid evidence of causation, right? If not, please clarify the "fallacy" in my assertion that you are referring to.

Sigh....... So tiring after awhile........NO dburk REPEATED ACTION THAT CORRELATES with a given result is an evidence until there is another explanation (not to the exclusion of other explanations). Now go read your wiki links with understanding this time.

Here let me break it down even simpler

Place a link one time to a page and the site goes up int he serp - not good enough.
Put it on another site and that site goes up .......Hmmmmmm
Put it another page and the pages goes up .......on to something

What in the world is sooo difficult to understand???????? That process has been the beginning of almost all discoveries in the world. So Rand claims in looking at serps he has seen a repeated correlation. Does it PROVE that is the case? NO. it could be something else given the layers to SEO But is it evidence? Yes. There is some indicators there. Its NOT "not a shred of evidence"

or do you still not get the difference between evidence and proof positive?

[Mike Anthony]

Logical Fallacy: Post Hoc

Here try this one since you are not getting the wikipedia explanation. The thing that make a post hoc a fallacy is that it does not take into account other explanations AT ALL. it just draws a straight line form order to cause. Rand is doing the EXACT opposite. he is looking at all the factors and seeing an effect that he thinks may be isolated to a one factor.

You may disagree but it is not fallacious and no just because it is not fallacious does not mean it is proven either.

[thebitbotdotcom]

The responses on this thread are way too long to read, but here is my two cents, which is actually worth about one cent or less.

I stopped worrying about PR LOOOOONNNNGGG ago.

That happened when I realized that I could out rank fortune 500 companies with PR 7 home pages for their main keywords of interest with a PR 0 .info domain.

RELEVANCY RULES!!!

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Sigh....... So tiring after awhile........NO dburk REPEATED ACTION THAT CORRELATES with a given result is an evidence until there is another explanation (not to the exclusion of other explanations). Now go read your wiki links with understanding this time.

Here let me break it down even simpler

Place a link one time to a page and the site goes up int he serp - not good enough.
Put it on another site and that site goes up .......Hmmmmmm
Put it another link and the pages goes up .......on to something

What in the world is sooo difficult to understand???????? That process has been the beginning of almost all discoveries in the world. So Rand claims in looking at serps he has seen a repeated correlation. Does it PROVE that is the case? NO. it could be something else given the layers to SEO But is it evidence? Yes. There is some indicators there. Its NOT "not a shred of evidence"

or do you still not get the difference between evidence and proof positive?

Hi Mike,

You have made a case for "evidence" of a correlation. I agree there is evidence of a correlation. However, correlation is not evidence of causation. That is the common logical fallacy that I pointed out by the term "Cum hoc ergo propter hoc". Yet you are repeatedly presenting "evidence" of correlation as if it is "evidence" of causation.

Correlation, does not rise to the level of actual evidence, it is simply coincidental in its very nature. Page level factors seem to account for the correlation, and evidence of page level factors are well established. We have a plausible and reasonable cause for the correlation and absolutely no evidence of domain level factors having influence.

Again I will assert that you, nor anyone else that I know of, have produced a "shred of evidence" that Google uses "domain authority", as a factor in SERP ranking. Therefor I will remain skeptical and challenge anyone that believes in the notion of domain authority to present actual "evidence" not purely coincidental correlations.

[seoguru1]

I think you may be confusing page rank with keyword rankings.

Page rank has absolutely nothing to do with where and how you rank for a specific keyword. Page rank is only valuable to outbound links, meaning if you have high PR incoming links, your site will move up in the ranks. But just because you have a PR8 website does not mean that you are going to rank high for any given word. It all depends on the incoming links, not the PR of your own domain.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom

That happened when I realized that I could out rank fortune 500 companies with PR 7 home pages for their main keywords of interest with a PR 0 .info domain.
!

ROFL. Uh- huh. Now would that be their "main keywords of interest" by anchor text or by your imagination? See I know this forum all to well and knew that some people would come in with junk nonsense to this thread the way it was written up.

Now think if a fortune 500 company had main keywords of interest wouldn't they have a relevant page for that term and backlinks with that anchor text?? Who are you kidding? Talk is cheap especially on an IM forum where people fake it till they make it. Show it in the serps. No one ever has.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by seoguru1

I think you may be confusing page rank with keyword rankings.

You never read the thread - no one makes the point you were trying to correct.

[seoguru1]

OP original thread was trying to tie a relation between PR and rankings

Originally Posted by orvn

Any simple Google search today can demonstrate that pagerank isn't in the slightest the measure Google goes by when ranking pages.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Mike,

Correlation, does not rise to the level of actual evidence, it is simply coincidental in its very nature.

Dburk despite my repeated attempts to show you how wrong your assessment of a fallacy is you still have no clue. Repetition of tests are meant to avoid coincidence and is the hallmark of modern science - a repeated test that shows the same results in varying situations is not now nor ever will be a logical fallacy.

Here last time read

The Post Hoc Fallacy is committed whenever one reasons to a causal conclusion based solely on the supposed cause preceding its "effect". Of course, it is a necessary condition of causation that the cause precede the effect, but it is not a sufficient condition. Thus, post hoc evidence may suggest the hypothesis of a causal relationship, which then requires further testing, but it is never sufficient evidence on its own.

This is what Rand has done by looking at repeated results. He has never indicated that the mere presence of an order is sufficient . THAT would be a post hoc argument. he has attempted to isolate other factors and no matter how much you want to pretend you get what a post hoc is you do not.

You can persist in your distortion that I am arguing for the definite presence of domain authority. I have said it REPEATEDLY - it has not been proven but your assertion that there is not a shred of evidence is false and its not fair to an established organization with the kind of data at their fingertips and reputation as SEomoz

You still have no understanding of the difference between having evidence for something and proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I can't help you . I made it as simple as possible.

[Mike Anthony]

I didn't take him as saying that from that quote. I thought he was talking about looking at factors in the serp not just the serp itself. So I wouldn't have thought knowing him he was making that point but I can no see why you might get that impression so it was not fair to claim you did not read the thread. My apologies.

Originally Posted by seoguru1

OP original thread was trying to tie a relation between PR and rankings

[seoguru1]

no problem... i can see how that can be confused... when I re-read the OP post, I understood why you said that. Not sure whos correct, but that is what I got out of the post

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Dburk despite my repeated attempts to show you how wrong your assessment of a fallacy is you still have no clue. Repetition of tests are meant to avoid coincidence and is the hallmark of modern science - a repeated test that shows the same results in varying situations is not now nor ever will be a logical fallacy.

Here last time read

This is what Rand has done by looking at repeated results. He has never indicated that the mere presence of an order is sufficient . THAT would be a post hoc argument. he has attempted to isolate other factors and no matter how much you want to pretend you get what a post hoc is you do not.

You can persist in your distortion that I am arguing for the definite presence of domain authority. I have said it REPEATEDLY - it has not been proven but your assertion that there is not a shred of evidence is false and its not fair to an established organization with the kind of data at their fingertips and reputation as SEomoz

You still have no understanding of the difference between having evidence for something and proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I can't help you . I made it as simple as possible.

Hi Mike,

never sufficient evidence on its own.

LOL, thanks for posting a quote that supports my point.

Forget " beyond a shadow of a doubt", forget "reasonable doubt", you can even forget "a preponderance of evidence". How about any "evidence of causation", got any? Evidence of correlation is not the same as evidence of causation. Do you have a shred of true evidence?

Suggesting that "evidence" of correlation is equal to evidence of causation is the fallacy of your argument. Using that same logic I could argue that since there are more authority pages launched on rainy days, rain is the cause of web page authority. Is rain evidence of authority (Reductio ad absurdum)? Can anything be considered evidence of a cause based solely on a correlation? I assert it cannot.

Again, I maintain my assertion that you, nor Rand have produced a shred of evidence that domain authority is a factor in SERP rankings.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Mike,



LOL, thanks for posting a quote that supports my point.

ROFL Of course you think that because you STILL don't get it.

The post hoc is considered by the person offering it to be sufficient so that they don't need to run repeated tests and isolate other causes. Thats what makes it fallacious (but alas you still won't get it)Rand has run repeated tests in the data. he has several thousands sites he is looking at!! AND he's attempted to isolate other causes!!!! Thats why it is not a Post hoc and its staring you right in the face. LOL.

You seem blissfully unaware that SEomoz runs ranking models with tonloads of data PRECISELY for this reason.

Forget " beyond a shadow of a doubt", forget "reasonable doubt", you can even forget "a preponderance of evidence". How about any "evidence of causation", got any? Evidence of correlation is not the same as evidence of causation. Do you have a shred of true evidence?

Does Rand who is the one making the argument not me (As you are intent on distorting)? Why yes. Go watch the videos. that might help He directly refers to data in his HUGE database of crawled sites. Yo Dburk. Wheres yours man. wheres your reams of Data like what he has. You have one even with half the sites he has looked at.

Suggesting that "evidence" of correlation is equal to evidence of causation is the fallacy of your argument. Using that same logic I could argue that since there are more authority pages launched on rainy days, rain is the cause of web page authority.

Weak but at least now everyone can see how obviously wrong you are. Rand isn't looking at some arbitrary occurence unrelated to the serps such as rain which CANNOT have causation to a computer algorithm. thats just being silly. He's looking at Ip addresses which in the programming of Google search bots is what the bots see . Further he's isolated other factors. So your analogy is way off. Rain has nothing to do with the web or Google. the same cannot be said about domains, Ip addresses, URls etc

You forgot to consult your fallacy list you linked to earlier

False analogy: an argument by analogy in which the analogy is poorly suited.

and with that terribly poor argument it doesn't happen often but I am extremely bored.

Have a good night.

[addison.agnote]

I agree with you mate!

[dburk]

Hi Mike,

Yes, reams of Data, yet absolutely none to support the the notion of domain authority. That is my point.

Rand made his initial assertions of domain authority long before he started testing and accumulating data. Rand had to back off the claim of "domain" authority as an important metric used by Google because he could never find any evidence that went beyond page level. Rand himself has acknowledged this on multiple occasions.

I'm afraid that you have mistaken my Reductio ad absurdum for a false analogy.

Please see the section that refers to a "false charge of fallacy": False analogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Incorrectly classifying an analogy false

Many people try to refute a correct analogy as a false analogy, often saying "Well, but that's different because", and refer to an existing property that the two things in the analogy indeed do not share. In cases like this, such a refutation is merely a "false charge of fallacy". But as analogies are comparing two different things there are always some properties that A and B do not share, so it is tempting to pull up one such difference to try to disqualify the analogy. For the purposes of the analogy, however, it is important to check if that difference is relevant for the analogy or not.

I believe you have fallen into the "many people" category in the above quote.

Again, I ask where is the evidence that supports the notion? Rand with all his data doesn't seem to have it, you don't seem to be able to produce it and nobody has responded to any of my challenges to cite actual evidence. As long as no true evidence can be found I will remain skeptical.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

I believe you have fallen into the "many people" category in the above quote.

LOL. I believe you have fallen into the can't understand fallacies if it kills you category -read your own quote

For the purposes of the analogy, however, it is important to check if that difference is relevant for the analogy or not.

Rain as an element of weather being the cause of domain authority on a computer algo as compared to a site deriving its authority from a domain which is related to a website. its absolutely horrid as an analogy -dreadfully poor

The difference is more than relevant and so You fail again at understanding falllacies and logic.

Domain conferring something to a rank isn't anything as unrelated or impossible as rain. We KNOW that Google trusts domains more (not merely pages) when they are at least two or three months old from being crawled. Plenty of people have indicated this as their experience

So much for no evidence whatsoever. There is even reason to think that such a DOMAIN effect lasts at a much lesser degree 6 months and a year out.

rand is merely looking at data that confers that authority over a domain just as it is not conferred in the early days of a site. Nothing that strange about it. proven no . no evidence at all that google looks at domains. horse raddish! They very much do in the first two three months so it wouldn't be surprising at all. Rand might be onto something.

So your claim of absolutely no evidence still loses.

[BarryWheeler]

Mike,

I just wanted to say thanks for your point of view. It's caused me to go digging more and also realize there's so much more that comes to play in this world of SEO.

The basic elements are straightforward. But after reading through things you have reavealed, there's much more happening than one is lead to believe.

Thanks again.

Barry

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

Mike,

I just wanted to say thanks for your point of view. It's caused me to go digging more and also realize there's so much more that comes to play in this world of SEO.

Yo Barry thank you for that. I couldn't ask for anything better than you digging in and looking at things for yourself. Always glad to help someone who wants to learn these things and I look forward to reading your stuff in the future and learning from you as well.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

LOL. I believe you have fallen into the can't understand fallacies if it kills you category -read your own quote

Rain as an element of weather being the cause of domain authority on a computer algo as compared to a site deriving its authority from a domain which is related to a website. its absolutely horrid as an analogy -dreadfully poor

The difference is more than relevant and so You fail again at understanding falllacies and logic.

Domain conferring something to a rank isn't anything as unrelated or impossible as rain. We KNOW that Google trusts domains more (not merely pages) when they are at least two or three months old from being crawled. Plenty of people have indicated this as their experience

So much for no evidence whatsoever. There is even reason to think that such a DOMAIN effect lasts at a much lesser degree 6 months and a year out.

rand is merely looking at data that confers that authority over a domain just as it is not conferred in the early days of a site. Nothing that strange about it. proven no . no evidence at all that google looks at domains. horse raddish! They very much do in the first two three months so it wouldn't be surprising at all. Rand might be onto something.

So your claim of absolutely no evidence still loses.

Mike, tsk tsk... again with the straw man argument. Surely you know that I was using this analogy to form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence. The point was to show how ridiculous it is to conclude that evidence of correlation is also somehow valid evidence of causation. One has nothing to do with the other. That type of flawed logic would allow you to provide evidence, albeit invalid evidence, to support virtually any conclusion on any issue, all you have to do is test until you find a correlation the supports you preconceived notion. And that is why it is considered a non sequitur.

The inescapable truth that you keep dancing around is that "correlation does not imply causation".

Rand's own research, as he himself presented it, demonstrated that his original conclusions about the importance of domain authority as a ranking factor was unsupported by the evidence he collected. Instead, he discovered that Google in particular used page authority as the primary factor of importance in ranking as far as authority related signals are concerned.

I merely pointed out that while Rand was willing to adjust his opinion on the importance, or lack thereof, of domain authority. I think he did not go far enough. He should of eliminated the whole notion of domain authority since his own evidence suggest that there is no authority that can be measured above and beyond "page" authority. The theory of domain level authority isn't necessary to account for all of the measurable authority, page level authority is sufficient to account for all measurable authority.

So again, where's the evidence?

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

Mike, tsk tsk... again with the straw man argument. Surely you know that I was using this analogy to form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence.

Lol thank you for that. then it should be apparent to anyone that you failed because there is no absurdity in the idea that a domain which when aged a month or two DOES confer more trust an authority as a DOMAIN might do so beyond that period that is even remotely analogous To RAIN absurdly affecting a computer algorithm.

DO you really think anyone bothered to be reading this can't see you've failed miserably on that count and that the two are not analogous at all. You are flailing helplessly at this point running for dictionaries and links to cover your blown point.Unfortunately all your links and even your quotes nail the point even harder.

and frankly you are doing that even in regard to the evidence that you claim is not evidence also - merely because you put on dark glasses and continue to ask where the evidence in front of you is.

I noticed you could not address the issue of a DOMAIN having more trust after two to three months of aging at all. You just ran like the wind from it. Why would you dodge from looking at it? Obvious to all.

It PROVES with no need for blather about correlation not equaling causation that Google DOES confer trust at the domain level for an aged DOMAIN. Once the reader realizes that a DOMAIN is monitored for age in order to give trust even at the two month point your alleged ABSURDITY just dries up, crumbles and blows away.

Now it may not prove that Rand is right in all his conclusions but it IS evidence and it DESTROYS your claim of absurdity

So how about it Dburk. Want to address just one solid piece of evidence in front of you or does a world without dark glasses hurt your eyes too much?

[Fraggler]

It's not hard to see why* Wikipedia has so much Domain or Page authority. How many links have you blokes giving them in just this one thread?!

*Result derived from aimless correlation with lack of focus on causation, and a touch of common sense.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Lol thank you for that. then it should be apparent to anyone that you failed because there is no absurdity in the idea that a domain which when aged a month or two DOES confer more trust an authority as a DOMAIN might do so beyond that period that is even remotely analogous To RAIN absurdly affecting a computer algorithm.

Mike, you are like a broken record, again with the straw man.

The point I made with the analogy is how absurd it is to consider correlation as evidence of causation. It is a well established scientific principle that correlation does not imply causation. Every time you try to push that logical fallacy I will call you on it. Quit trying to twist what I said into a straw man argument.

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

DO you really think anyone bothered to be reading this can't see you've failed miserably on that count and that the two are not analogous at all. You are flailing helplessly at this point running for dictionaries and links to cover your blown point.Unfortunately all your links and even your quotes nail the point even harder.

Yes, I think many people are familiar with your worn out straw man trolling tactic.

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

and frankly you are doing that even in regard to the evidence that you claim is not evidence also - merely because you put on dark glasses and continue to ask where the evidence in front of you is.

Now you are resorting to Argumentum ad nauseam as part of your straw man.

Your point was successfully and repeatedly refuted as a logical fallacy. Evidence of correlation will never be the same thing as evidence of causation, no matter how many times you repeat it, it remains a fallacy.

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

I noticed you could not address the issue of a DOMAIN having more trust after two to three months of aging at all. You just ran like the wind from it. Why would you dodge from looking at it? Obvious to all.

Could not, or would not?

I saw your Circulus in demonstrando as the circular argument, based on a false premise, for what it is and did not take the bait. Did you think you could use what you are trying to prove as part of the proof of that thing, and I would miss that non sequitur?

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

It PROVES with no need for blather about correlation not equaling causation that Google DOES confer trust at the domain level for an aged DOMAIN. Once the reader realizes that a DOMAIN is monitored for age in order to give trust even at the two month point your alleged ABSURDITY just dries up, crumbles and blows away.

No, you haven't proved anything except you know how to use the logical fallacy of a circular argument. Page level authority and trust accounts for everything you attribute to the domain level. You presented absolutely no evidence that suggests domain level factors play any role.

Domains are not monitored for "age" by search engines. Search engines use the age of the "document", not "domain", within their index as a trust factor. Domain age seems to play no role whatsoever. Do you have any evidence to support that assertion, or did you pull it out of thin air? Oh wait.. let me guess! Another correlation proves causation argument right? Again, refuted by the principle of causation does not imply causation.

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Now it may not prove that Rand is right in all his conclusions but it IS evidence and it DESTROYS your claim of absurdity

So what? Your position isn't in line with Rand's revised conclusions, only his pre-test assumptions that he revised after his tests failed to confirm them.

Using fallacious arguments "destroys" nothing but the credibility of your own argument.

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

So how about it Dburk. Want to address just one solid piece of evidence in front of you or does a world without dark glasses hurt your eyes too much?

Again, no matter how many times you repeat a fallacious argument, correlation will never imply causation, that is an inescapable principle.

That point has been successfully and repeatedly refuted. Evidence of correlation is not evidence of causation. That simple truth will forever haunt your false assertion.

How about real evidence, got any?