Page PR vs. Domain PR?

Hi Mike,

Again, we are not that far apart. Let me re-emphasize that "Domain Authority" or PageRank can be interchanged. What is generally true about PageRank is also true about so called "Domain Authority" and vice versa, and in the exact same proportions.

What Rand seems to be trying to accomplish is to create his own metric that considers both Pagerank and relevancy factors together to model Google's ranking algorithm. Initially he only used "Domain Authority", but found that it didn't quite work. So he added "Page Authority" to compensate. Essentially his "Page Authority" can be boiled down to "Domain Authority" and backlink relevance weighted by PageRank then adjusted to compensate for "Domain Authority" distortion.

It's much simpler, more elegant and just as accurate in my opinion to leave the "Domain Authority" completely out of the equation. Since search engines, by design, do not ever consider websites, just web pages and how they link to each other, it offers you a much truer model.

I think at some level Rand has come to this conclusion, but he has a lot vested in that model of his. Clearly he indicates that his "Page Authority" is the primary metric in his model and seems to be deemphasizing other factors including "Domain Authority".

Both Terry and Kok Choon's research validate what I have been saying all along. Search engines don't rank websites, they web pages. Therefore a "website's topic" has absolutely no bearing on the relevance of a backlink. Where I tend to disagree with their conclusions is not in their findings, but in their characterization of relevance. Search engines never consider a websites topic, therefore it cannot ever have any influence on page relevance or backlink relevance.

It's all perception based on a false premise. Website topics have nothing to do with anything in SEO. So, no matter where you try to apply the concept of "website topic" the answer will always be "it doesn't matter". A "website topic" does not define backlink relevance and to suggest it does is, I believe, a non-sequitur.

I don't believe I have a "special way of viewing relevancy" unless you consider Google's way to be special. Clearly they view it as relative value, not an absolute. For example, how can you explain their ability to "sort by relevance" in the AdWords Keyword Tool if they view relevance as an absolute value, clearly they do not.

The words "relative", "related" and "relevant" all sound similar, but each have different meanings and are often confused by folks. The words related and relevant can both be used as either absolute or relative values. It isn't useful to use them in any fashion other than how Google uses them when discussing SEO. Google obviously views relevancy in a relative fashion, not as an absolute. I try to use this term in the same fashion as Google when discussing SEO. I wouldn't view that as "special", I prefer to think of it as conventional.

p.s. I include those links to definitions for certain terms, not because I believe you don't know their meaning, but that some folks reading this thread might find them helpful. This is a public forum and folks from all walks of life may be reading this thread.

No trick - question is simply PR of www.site.com vs PR of www.site.com/page1.html

Thanks for the input. Ya im a proponent of profile backlinks, although they are almost always from pr 0 pages, because some of my sites have had success with them.

I know no one knows for sure what weight google gives the domain authority vs the page authority, but what would your educated guess be if we were doing percentages?

Personally - if we were doing a 100 point scale to compare the 2 - I would guess page authority is 80-90% while domain authority is 10-20%

Mike, thats a great resource. In case anyone missed it, its "http://www.opensiteexplorer.org" Shows you domain authority vs page authority for your site, your competitors, and your backlinks. Thanks for the link, im sure it'll prove to be an invaluable resource. I only wish seomoz would say what weight they've found domain authority to have over page authority.

Whatever works for you but the reality is that most people can't get links directly from High PR pages without comment spam and then the PR is mercilessly divided by hundreds of people commenting on the same site.

look for everyone that says profile links don't work for them there are three or four that says it does. I just got a site to the first page with nothing but a few profile links (and yeah it has solid competition on page one and two) . I did it in a test environment. Before the links the site was parked at 400 . Theres at least one thread a week on that subject and its usually the same. Some people it didn't work for plenty who it does

Now unlike some people into backlinking from profile sites I'll tell you straightup. It should be for getting going and to give yourself a boost every now and again. To me the idea of going on and on with creating your own backlinks is semi insane. Sooner or later you have to present the content, community and features that get links to your site from within content as people refer to you normally.

Profile backlinks work? Not debatable especially on Warriors. Too many people have used them and seen good results. The number one reason for this is not relevancy. That too has been tested. Its not PR because as everyone point s out there is little PR.

That leaves the fairly well accepted notion of Domain authority. Getting a bunch of sites that have no PR anywhere on the domains doesn't give much of a boost as these links do.