How Important is Pagerank?

[WriterWahm]

Hi everyone,

I've read several threads here and there seem to be conflicting opinions when it comes to pagerank. I think everyone seems to be of the opinion that having your pages ranking well for your keywords is a great thing.

However, I see many people obsessed about backlinking and what they need to do to get their pages ranking well. They talk about .edu links and .gov links and so many other SEO methods.

Then again, I hear those who say that you should not really worry about your pagerank. They say, just write unique and relevant content and your pagerank will take care of itself.

I'm a bit confused here. Do I go out of my way to find proactive ways of building the pagerank of my site (pages) or do I just keep offering great content, leaving thoughtful comments on blogs, offering guest posts and let the pagerank build itself?

Thank you.

[Wide]

Well...

Pagerank means Google like the site and a lot of websites are linking to it. Higher PR = higher rank in the search results (normally).

I don't care much about it though. Just focusing on writing good content and do some backlinking, the PR will follow later.

[UtahHomesToGo]

I haven't noticed my page rank to be that big of a deal. However I notice huge movements in my serp when my site is back linked on a high pr site.

So in my opinion I feel that you should focus on back links to high pr sites, which in return will result in your sites page rank going up.

You will find so many different opinions on this, but you just have to find what works for you.

If you start with good content the rest will fall into place even easier. Hope this helps and good luck!

[Ben Armstrong]

Originally Posted by WriterWahm

However, I see many people obsessed about backlinking and what they need to do to get their pages ranking well.

I think the confusion probably comes from the terminology being used here.

When people say you need to get your pages ranking well they're referring to getting a better position in the SERPS. ie. getting to the front page of google, not getting your Page Rank up.

Page Rank is good as it means google likes your page, but what's really important is your position in the SERPS as that will determine the organic traffic your site gets.

[wolfmanjack]

Google says that it isn't very important any more but i have seen evidence that back links from high PR hold more weight than back links from sites with no PR.

There are a lot of PR0 sites that rank higher then PR4 sites though so I would say your sites back links are more important than your sites PR.

[Daverz]

Originally Posted by WriterWahm

I've read several threads here and there seem to be conflicting opinions when it comes to pagerank. I think everyone seems to be of the opinion that having your pages ranking well for your keywords is a great thing.

However, I see many people obsessed about backlinking and what they need to do to get their pages ranking well. They talk about .edu links and .gov links and so many other SEO methods.

Seems like you're getting pagerank and your search engine ranking a bit confused. While your website's pagerank does effect how well it ranks in Google to a degree, it's definitely not the only factor. You can still rank well for a keyword with a low pagerank.

As far as how to improve your pagerank - backlinks and more backlinks. The higher the page rank of those backlinks, the better.

[WriterWahm]

Originally Posted by Ben Armstrong

I think the confusion probably comes from the terminology being used here.

When people say you need to get your pages ranking well they're referring to getting a better position in the SERPS. ie. getting to the front page of google, not getting your Page Rank up.

Page Rank is good as it means google likes your page, but what's really important is your position in the SERPS as that will determine the organic traffic your site gets.

Thanks Ben, I didn't really see it that way. I somehow always thought they were synonymous terms so that clarifies things a lot. Thank you.

[Wide]

You should ignore Pagerank, there is nothing you can do about it anyway.
Just focus on your content and backlinks, the Pagerank will follow

[simonrv]

As long as you're complying with Google guidelines with strong backlinks, Google may give you good Page Rank. PR is also a sign on your website's authority.

[WriterWahm]

Thanks for your answers everyone. When you're growing a new site for business purposes, it can get really confusing. When I was just blogging for blogging sake, I really didn't care one way or another about PR and I got a PR3 site even though I didn't do a thing to optimize it for search engines - not deliberately anyway.

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by WriterWahm

Thanks for your answers everyone. When you're growing a new site for business purposes, it can get really confusing. When I was just blogging for blogging sake, I really didn't care one way or another about PR and I got a PR3 site even though I didn't do a thing to optimize it for search engines - not deliberately anyway.

^ That's the right way to do it.

Getting PR without focusing on getting it is usually the best scenario because it is all natural and you know Google truly loves your site.

Just focus on writing as much original content as you can and link it to your pages or offers.

Then focus on pointing some high quality backlinks to the content and landing pages and watch your actual rankings accelerate in the search engines.

This is really all you need to worry yourself over.

~Dave

[Stuart william]

Originally Posted by WriterWahm

Thanks for your answers everyone. When you're growing a new site for business purposes, it can get really confusing. When I was just blogging for blogging sake, I really didn't care one way or another about PR and I got a PR3 site even though I didn't do a thing to optimize it for search engines - not deliberately anyway.

if you are getting sufficient traffic from different sources then don't be bother about pagerank. If you are doing a right job then google will take care of your site and assigned decent pr to your site

[KimboJim]

PR is a good thing, but it's just one factor that Google considers. It is mostly based on the type of backlinks you have, so it should increase automatically as you start marketing your website.

[nik0]

Originally Posted by simonrv

As long as you're complying with Google guidelines with strong backlinks, Google may give you good Page Rank. PR is also a sign on your website's authority.

PR is not a sign of website authority.

Go check out Dano Furniture - Secure Online Shop and tell me if you think this site is an authority. Let me help you, it's a thin affiliate site build with FreshStoreBuilder and spammed with 150.000 of the worse backlinks you can imagine.

Now go check the pagerank, it's PR5, go see for yourself. The site gets less then 5 unique / visitors a day. Before the spamming it had 40 unique visitors a day and PR0.

[WriterWahm]

Originally Posted by nik0

PR is not a sign of website authority.

Go check out Dano Furniture - Secure Online Shop and tell me if you think this site is an authority. Let me help you, it's a thin affiliate site build with FreshStoreBuilder and spammed with 150.000 of the worse backlinks you can imagine.

Now go check the pagerank, it's PR5, go see for yourself. The site gets less then 5 unique / visitors a day. Before the spamming it had 40 unique visitors a day and PR0.

So are you saying that PR doesn't matter at all?

[bnetwork]

Page Rank does not equal webpage rankings in the SERPs.

I tested a lot of theories with this PR update, here's a couple things for you to think about:

1. We built 5 mini blog sites with just 2 backlinks each. Both backlinks come from PR3 and PR2 pages. All 5 of those blogs now have PR3. They've a total of 2 links each.

2. I have a site that has maybe 100 high PR (page) links (PR3 to PR6). This site also has thousands of articles all over the web linking back to it. Blogs, news sites, bookmarking sites, etc. A total of maybe 30k links or more. It got PR1 this update.

So there you go...

Sites in group #1 make no money, get no SERP traffic and don't rank anywhere. Very thin sites, just a few pages each.

Site #2 is a pretty big site with over 600 daily uniques from Google alone and averages £11+ daily through Adsense. It's ranking #1 for four different keywords and on page 1 for another 20 or so keys.

Another interesting observation is this:

In group #1, only the home pages got links (and only 2 each). There are links from home pages to inner pages. All inner pages got PR2 or PR3. They have zero other (external) links.

PR != SERP position.

[nik0]

Originally Posted by WriterWahm

So are you saying that PR doesn't matter at all?

PR is easy to manipulate, if you do legit backlinking and get a lot of links from high PR sites your pagerank will increase and your serps probably as well. Just to indicate its no grade to measure your success or authority.

[simon25i]

It matters actually because Google give value to the page ranks a lot. And when we concern about backlinks then if we make back links through high pr web pages, it will benefits ours as well.

[nik0]

Indeed BNetwork I also have a site that makes me money and it has literally tons of PR4 PR5 backlinks, I think at least 50 and 100's of PR3 backlinks. After this latest update it went to PR2 only I was like wtf, this crappy site got PR5 and isn't making a single dime nor visitors, and my ohter site got PR2 and gets 100 uniques/day and is making nice money.

Now what I really wonder, how strong will a link be from such PR5 site that I just showed or a link from your mini blogs. Thats the real question here.

[nik0]

Originally Posted by simon25i

It matters actually because Google give value to the page ranks a lot. And when we concern about backlinks then if we make back links through high pr web pages, it will benefits ours as well.

Ofcourse it matters, but I think there is a lot more to it then only looking at the PR and the number of outbound links where you put your link. From the above examples that we provided it's a terribly lousy indicator of "authority" as I think we can all agree that my PR5 and the mini PR3 have ZERO authority in reality.

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by nik0

Now what I really wonder, how strong will a link be from such PR5 site that I just showed or a link from your mini blogs. Thats the real question here.

Not very strong. They do pass PR though (good for blog post sellers heh).

A backlink from a PR0 page with a well diversified link profile always (in my tests) has more effect (SERPs) than a backlink from a PR3/5 page with 1-20 backlinks. Not many people believe this, but whatever. Everyone's a SEO guru on this forum.

[WriterWahm]

This is quite interesting.
I guess when it comes down to it, a high PR is only useful for selling blog posts and links but it does not really guarantee that there would be high SERP traffic. Right?

Originally Posted by bnetwork

Page Rank does not equal webpage rankings in the SERPs.

I tested a lot of theories with this PR update, here's a couple things for you to think about:

1. We built 5 mini blog sites with just 2 backlinks each. Both backlinks come from PR3 and PR2 pages. All 5 of those blogs now have PR3. They've a total of 2 links each.

2. I have a site that has maybe 100 high PR (page) links (PR3 to PR6). This site also has thousands of articles all over the web linking back to it. Blogs, news sites, bookmarking sites, etc. A total of maybe 30k links or more. It got PR1 this update.

So there you go...

Sites in group #1 make no money, get no SERP traffic and don't rank anywhere. Very thin sites, just a few pages each.

Site #2 is a pretty big site with over 600 daily uniques from Google alone and averages £11+ daily through Adsense. It's ranking #1 for four different keywords and on page 1 for another 20 or so keys.

Another interesting observation is this:

In group #1, only the home pages got links (and only 2 each). There are links from home pages to inner pages. All inner pages got PR2 or PR3. They have zero other (external) links.

PR != SERP position.

[learnhacking]

Pagerank means lot of websites are linking to your sites.So in my opinion I feel that you should focus on back links to high pr sites.

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by WriterWahm

This is quite interesting.
I guess when it comes down to it, a high PR is only useful for selling blog posts and links but it does not really guarantee that there would be high SERP traffic. Right?

Well, not exactly.

High PR has nothing to do with traffic, so yeah. Kind of.

High PR + diverse backlink profile is the best option. That's why some people look for aged high PR domains with diverse backlink profiles when building their own blog networks.

In a simple sense - yes - PR is good for selling blog posts, increasing (perceived) value of sites before flipping them, etc.

When buying links on high PR blogs, don't forget to ask for other metrics such as backlink count (even though it's just approximate), unique linking domains, site (or page) age, etc.

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by learnhacking

Pagerank means lot of websites are linking to your sites.

It does not.

[aaronaddy]

PR represent the popularity of your website and quality linking, one need proper SEO to get Good PR and SERP.

[Charan]

some people say Google PR is the number on important attribute to have a PR well in
Google. some say PR is worthless and should be completely ignored.
PR is the general algorithm of Google which ranks a site on the basis of it's back links.
But may be the Google PR is important for our web site, if you have good site PR, it's a affect you can get more traffic on your site or with more traffic definitely you will get good on line business.

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[AlbertSmiths]

1) Google will crawl your site more often. This is due to the number of inbound or incoming links you have. The more links to your site (page), the more chances Googlebot will crawl and index (or reindex) your site.

2) Webmasters or site-owners will be willing to pay to have a link from your site. And if your PR is higher, they will usually be more willing to pay a higher price.

3) More links indexed = more chance of people clicking your link. And hence possibly more visitors. But of course, this is not always guaranteed as it depends on whether your site is related to all those incoming links since only those interested will click on your link.

[cardine]

How well you are ranking matters a lot more than PR. PR is a very rough estimate of how "authoritative" Google thinks your site is.

However, it is only a rough estimate at best. I'd much rather have a low PR site that ranks for a bunch of high traffic keywords than a high PR site that doesn't rank for much of anything.

PR and rankings are only loosely related, so it is not a good idea to give PR that much importance or pay that much attention to it.

[optimizenewyork]

Earning money with a website nowadays is not that easy anymore. You are not the only one out there so it is important you stay ahead of the competition. Getting a higher Page Rank, discovering good websites for link and article exchanges and joint ventures are nice techniques to get you ahead of the rest of the marketers on the Internet but they do take time and effort.

[GyuMan82]

PR only really matters when selling your site or selling links from your site.

[juanlawry1]

high pr means google and other sites just like your site and there is more traffic and your site is opened much time.
There is a algorithm done by the google to perform this task.

[halfpoint]

Originally Posted by juanlawry1

high pr means google and other sites just like your site and there is more traffic and your site is opened much time.

Nope.

PR != traffic

[dnc104]

I would get more focused on improving your website through posting original contents rather than getting a higher PageRank. A lot of websites are having good results on SERP though they have low PR.

[lisadan1]

Originally Posted by KimboJim

PR is a good thing, but it's just one factor that Google considers. It is mostly based on the type of backlinks you have, so it should increase automatically as you start marketing your website.

yup, well said, so do quality back link with the help of best sites like backlinksindexer

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by Pat Jackson

Nope.

PR != traffic

Haha, love it. I get a feeling half the people posting here don't actually read. They just post w/e to increase their post count.

[WriterWahm]

Thanks for all your replies. I really appreciate the time and effort. I think basically what most people are saying is this:

1. Page rank is important
2. But not as important as page ranking - which is something else completely
3. While page ranking is important, don't obsess
4. Focusing on quality content and networking (guest posting + blog commenting) should take care of things.

Thank you

[GeorgR.]

PR is not important, EXCEPT if you want to sell sites...but even then i could care less. I had PR1 sites with 6000 daily visitors.

[johnsonsmith]

PageRank is important to driving indexing, but for rankings it is nowhere near as important as it once was. SEO has become a much more refined art. In an October 2009 interview, Google's Amit Singal

[prcys]

Originally Posted by WriterWahm

Hi everyone,

I've read several threads here and there seem to be conflicting opinions when it comes to pagerank. I think everyone seems to be of the opinion that having your pages ranking well for your keywords is a great thing.

However, I see many people obsessed about backlinking and what they need to do to get their pages ranking well. They talk about .edu links and .gov links and so many other SEO methods.

Then again, I hear those who say that you should not really worry about your pagerank. They say, just write unique and relevant content and your pagerank will take care of itself.

I'm a bit confused here. Do I go out of my way to find proactive ways of building the pagerank of my site (pages) or do I just keep offering great content, leaving thoughtful comments on blogs, offering guest posts and let the pagerank build itself?

Thank you.

Obviously pagerank matters more and that is why if pagerank update by google then each person start to talk about it.
As pagerank shows that how much the site hold quality data and how much the site is authorised and when anyone want to exchange links with other then first they consider the pagerank of the site to decide. So pagerank matters more.

[mosthost]

PageRank is extremely important, yet mis-understood by so many.

[bnetwork]

Originally Posted by mosthost

PageRank is extremely important, yet mis-understood by so many.

Care to elaborate?

[Tom Albas]

es it is very important but not more than your content. You can receive thousands of visitors and goog pageviews per day with PR0. I have few friends in my networks who are full time bloggers and earning lots of money without having rankings such as PR and Alexa at all. Because there power tool is post frequency. The more you keep posting quality content the more you receive traffic. If you are destroying your precious time in looking for backlinks or exchange links and not posting content consistently then you are close to nothing.

Google PageRank and Alexa are important only when you have a Good Quality Content and Traffic. Advertisers look for three things when they buy a an ad slot:
1. Traffic
2. Alexa
3. PageRank
But Google AdSense looks for Traffic

[mosthost]

Originally Posted by bnetwork

Care to elaborate?

Sure. PageRank is still the essential component of Google's ranking algo. People don't think it is anymore because there's a very small correlation between what they see on the Toolbar and the 'real' internal PR.

That's the main reason Google moved to spreading their PR updates so far apart. In 2006 or so they actually were updating the PR 'on the fly' and you could actually see how the PR and links affected SERPS. After that, with so much manipulation going on, they pushed the TBPR updates so far apart, people won't notice that there's still a ton of correlation between PR and SERPs, but it's no longer very obvious.

That said, Google still holds the patent for PageRank. They still display it on their Toolbar, and they take into account for rankings. Plus potential customers might still judge website based on TBPR.

How can that not be important? Either the people who say it's totally unimportant don't have any, don't understand it, or have an agenda that involves pushing 'low PR' solutions for ranking. This is all IMHO, of course

[ozsubasi]

Maybe it would be a good time to consider what Google is actually currently saying about PageRank:

From the Google Toolbar page:

"Pause your cursor over the PageRank button to display the importance of the webpage you're viewing. Webpages with a higher PageRank are more likely to appear at the top of Google search results.
To learn more, see the Technology Overview."

Extract from the Technology Overview:

"When Google was founded, one key innovation was PageRank, a technology that determined the “importance” of a webpage by looking at what other pages link to it, as well as other data.
Today we use more than 200 signals, including PageRank, to order websites, and we update these algorithms on a weekly basis."

Unfortunately I can't post the links to these.

[Tadresources]

While pagerank is obviously a part of the your overall website ranking, it is a product of many more important things. If you are making an active effort to create good content, establish high-quality backlinks and catering to the site user, not the search engine, the pagerank will take care of itself over time.

[OmarNegron]

I use to go crazy over pagerank....not anymore though.

As long as you have good unique content on our website that pertains to your subject and have good backlinks going to your site (off site seo), then you should be fine.

When they do their PR updates your PR will more than likely go up and you won't even notice it! Unless you check that kind of thing every day. ;-)

-Omar

[DonHuevos]

I agree with most everyone else here. My sites that have and hold high SERP also have the best and most content. But, I am very careful with my backlinking. In my world it's quality over quantity.

[ThatAblaze]

Pagerank is supposed to be the amount of "push" your site has. So it is the amount of weight any links off your site will be worth. If you want to "pull" users in with SERP you will need to have a lot of "push" from other sites. That gets you high in the search results.

Getting a high "push" will primarily help you promote other sites. However, you must remember that unless your site contains only one page it promotes itself by linking to itself as well. So if you have a PR3 homepage then every page on your site gets the benefit of a free PR3 link.

So PR will increase your ranking... but it's only a good start.

[thatkeywordguy]

It's the million dollar question. But I'd still say its pretty important.