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Is It Possible to Get a PR5 With No Links and 1 Page Indexed?

by solution4u
21 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey,

I have just come across several sites that are PR5 or PR6.

I have checked them in the Fake PR checkers which say they are genuine.

But in MajesticSEO and in Ahrefs there are ZERO backlinks, and in Majestic they also have 0 Citation Flow and 0 Trust Flow.

When I throw them in Google with info:sitename.com they all show ONLY the home page as being indexed (despite the fact that the sites have a few dozen pages each, appearing to date back to e.g. May 2012 (they are Wordpress blogs with Archives in the sidebar).

I can't see how they can possibly be genuine PR5 and PR6's.

But why would they be showing as genuine in the PR checkers??

If anyone can help me out with this, I would really appreciate some insights.

Thanks!
#indexed #links #page #pr5
  • Profile picture of the author Curtis2011
    It's unlikely, but weird things can happen. I once put a site of about 100 content pages online, and within a few weeks the home page had gotten to PR3 without me building a single link to it. It also had almost zero traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
    If they are on Flippa, I believe a common trick is to forward a high PR domain for as long as the auction is live. Once the site is sold - surprise - the forward is removed and sent to another domain for another sucker to buy!

    Of course a small site with zero links can't be PR 5. 2 or 3 yes, that isn't hard. Well done for doing your due diligence though.
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    • Profile picture of the author solution4u
      Hi Curtis2011 - the thing is, there are several of these sites (not just a one off).

      Hi Rosetrees - my understanding is that if you forward a high PR domain to another one, the one that doesn't really have the PR will show up as Fake in the PR checkers. These show as Genuine. (Or am I wrong about that?)
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    • Profile picture of the author sanusense
      Originally Posted by rosetrees View Post

      If they are on Flippa, I believe a common trick is to forward a high PR domain for as long as the auction is live. Once the site is sold - surprise - the forward is removed and sent to another domain for another sucker to buy!

      Of course a small site with zero links can't be PR 5. 2 or 3 yes, that isn't hard. Well done for doing your due diligence though.
      Of course they are doing domain redirect techniques, probably for selling domain or that site on Flippa or else. I have seen many domains with fake pr got sold in Flippa, such a idiotic people i would say.
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  • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
    I imagine that it would take time to show. I'd also imagine that a clever scammer knows how to get round the fake checkers. You need sbucciarel - she's one of the domain gurus.
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  • Profile picture of the author solution4u
    sbucciarel or anyone else - any ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Fake PR checkers aee worthless. That's why. It is impossible to have PR without backlinks. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is an idiot.
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    I have only 1 question: Is this website in Flippa or any other website to sell them? If yes, it's normal the PR to be fake!

    Just to say that sometimes it's normal to have PR1-2 without backlinks, but PR5... It's impossible! Why? Because a backlink could not be indexed by Google by the time of the PR update or just the website (where you get a backlink from!) could have been blacklisted from Google and that's a reason NOT to show it as a backlink!

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  • Profile picture of the author seoace
    Yes, it is possible if you redirect a high pr domain to the fresh domain.

    Some people sell "high pr" domain which are actually fake using this method. After buying up the "high pr" domain, they cut off the direct and that fresh domain loses its pr.
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  • Profile picture of the author solution4u
    Hey guys,

    Thanks for your input. No, these are not sites on Flippa. The sites aren't being sold. The owner is selling links on these sites. So there's less of an incentive to fake the PR, since it can be checked at any time by the buyers of the links. But I can't see that they could be anything but fake. ?

    Patco - I wasn't sure what you were saying about the blacklisting - which sites are you saying may have been blacklisted?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by solution4u View Post

      Hey guys,

      Thanks for your input. No, these are not sites on Flippa. The sites aren't being sold. The owner is selling links on these sites. So there's less of an incentive to fake the PR, since it can be checked at any time by the buyers of the links. But I can't see that they could be anything but fake. ?
      There is plenty of incentive to fake the PR. They probably bought the domains for next to nothing. Got the fake PR, and are now selling links to gullible marketers that don't know any better. Sure, in an update or two the PR might not show in the toolbar anymore, but they have already made a profit on these at that point.

      PR passes through links. Whether they are direct links or links forwarded through a 301 redirect, it takes links to gain PR.
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  • Profile picture of the author smodha
    Sounds like a scam to me. As mentioned above, I think it's a typical 301 redirect.

    Mike is right - you cannot have PR without backlinks.
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    • Profile picture of the author sanusense
      Originally Posted by smodha View Post

      Sounds like a scam to me. As mentioned above, I think it's a typical 301 redirect.

      Mike is right - you cannot have PR without backlinks.
      Nope !!! you can get page rank without making any backlinks, A while ago i had a site with around 6 articles on SEM with only 100 visitors/day ! So, i left that blog. But later on i have seen some changes just before last Google panda update i got PR3 for that blog amazingly without doing any seo. But then again this feb it goes down to PR0... !! :p
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    • Profile picture of the author solution4u
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Fake PR checkers aee worthless. That's why. It is impossible to have PR without backlinks. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is an idiot.
      I can see that these PR checkers aren't always accurate, yes.

      Originally Posted by smodha View Post

      Sounds like a scam to me. As mentioned above, I think it's a typical 301 redirect.

      Mike is right - you cannot have PR without backlinks.
      I'm sure you can't have PR without backlinks, but I'm intrigued as to how they've made the PR on these sites look authentic.

      I've checked on Google with info:sitename.com and no redirect shows up. I think if they have used a redirect, it shows with info:sitename.com
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by solution4u View Post

        I've checked on Google with info:sitename.com and no redirect shows up. I think if they have used a redirect, it shows with info:sitename.com
        That only identifies if the domain itself was redirected to another domain.

        It does not tell you if their are other redirects pointing to the domain itself.
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        • Profile picture of the author solution4u
          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          That only identifies if the domain itself was redirected to another domain.

          It does not tell you if their are other redirects pointing to the domain itself.
          Hmmh, I think it's the reverse - if I put info:sitename.com into Google, and it returns redirectedsite.org, then that means that redirectedsite.org has the PR and is being redirected to sitename.com to provide fake PR for sitename.com
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          • Profile picture of the author Bambu
            You almost got it right: sitename.com would've been 301 redirected to redirectedsite.org (high PR domain) in your example.

            How else would there be fake PR9/10s floating around out there. Not like someone could get a hold of websites the likes of Facebook, Google, or Adobe and 301 redirect them to create fake PR9/10s, right?

            Originally Posted by solution4u View Post

            Hmmh, I think it's the reverse - if I put info:sitename.com into Google, and it returns redirectedsite.org, then that means that redirectedsite.org has the PR and is being redirected to sitename.com to provide fake PR for sitename.com
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by solution4u View Post

        I
        I'm sure you can't have PR without backlinks, but I'm intrigued as to how they've made the PR on these sites look authentic.
        Stop spending valuable time being intrigued and get back to work on your site and business. Fake PR will not make you a dime unless you want a future as a scammer.
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  • Profile picture of the author smodha
    It's easy and very common on Flipper.com. Using the 301 redirect, they're passing the link juice onto the site that's for sale. Once the site is sold, the redirect is removed (which means loss of PR too) and you have yourself a worthless site.

    It's a massive red flag.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bambu
    There are several reasons why a domain might end up with fake PR, and not all of them are nefarious.

    A common method for faking PR on a domain (e.g., PR0) is to 301 redirect that domain to a high PR domain, such as Google. Then wait for Google to update tool bar PR and remove the 301 redirect. You now have a high PR domain with no backlinks (in this instance a PR9!!!) ;-)

    Of course, the above domain still have the ranking power of a PR0. So, the PR is just for show or maybe gullible buyers on your favorite auction site.

    There are instances where faked PR is the result of legitimate business practices. For example, say a site owner who currently owns siteurl.net acquires siteurl.com. They then setup a 301 redirect of siteurl.net to siteurl.com. Let's say overtime, siteurl.com acquires a higher PR than siteurl.net and then the owner decides to sell siteurl.net. In this instance, once the 301 redirect is removed siteurl.net will have the same (fake) PR as siteurl.com.

    Fake PR is very common and anyone thinking about buying high PR domains from auctions or from private sellers would do well to learn how to analyze a domain's backlink profile and to use tools, such as archive.org to catch sneaky 301s that the site:www.siteurl.com command might miss.
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