Google's PR Don't Mean Squat

15 years ago

If you went from 4 to 1, in Google's eyes your site is becoming less popular i.e less people are linking to it.

All it takes is a bit of competition and your site is gone!

Mark

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Intrepreneur

If you went from 4 to 1, in Google's eyes your site is becoming less popular i.e less people are linking to it.

All it takes is a bit of competition and your site is gone!

Mark

Yeah, I know what it's supposed to mean but it hasn't affected my bottom
line from that site one bit...so again, IMO, it don't mean squat.

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- Lance K 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Kingdom_Mines
  
  when your site dissapears from google so will you sad but true.
  
  Google must be your heroin.
  
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ramkarthik

15 years ago

It is nice to hear that. I had my blog's PR drop from 5 to 2 but I'm still getting good amount of traffic. But the question is, would it have been more if PR5 stayed?

And I also wonder why some people (including SEOs) advice others not to compete against a high PR site for a search term? They say it is better to go for a term which has less PR sites ranking in first page. If PR doesn't matter that much, why do they say so?

I believe there is still some value to PR but that is just my opinion.

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

It is nice to hear that. I had my blog's PR drop from 5 to 2 but I'm still getting good amount of traffic. But the question is, would it have been more if PR5 stayed?

And I also wonder why some people (including SEOs) advice people not to compete against a high PR site for a search term? They say it is better to go for a term which has less PR sites ranking in first page. If PR doesn't matter that much, why do they say so?

I believe there is still some value to PR but that is just my opinion.

I'm a bottom line guy. If my PR drops and everything else stays the same,
then IMO, what's the point? It's like saying, "We don't like you as much
anymore...but we're still going to come to your site just as much and buy
just as much stuff."

It's like when somebody sticks their tongue out at me.

So what? As long as it doesn't affect my business, who cares?

Anyway, just my opinion on this PR thing.

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Lance K

15 years ago

PR is a page thing, not a site thing.

Anyway, out of curiosity, have you been getting the same amount of traffic referred from Google since the PR drop?

I agree though, the bottom line rules.

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Lance K

PR is a page thing, not a site thing.

Anyway, out of curiosity, have you been getting the same amount of traffic referred from Google since the PR drop?

I agree though, the bottom line rules.

My traffic from Google has NEVER been great...EVER.

No different now than it was when I was PR 4. Because when I was PR 4
I was still NOWHERE near page one.

Hell, you couldn't have found my site with an LBT if you tried.

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

I'm a bottom line guy. If my PR drops and everything else stays the same,
then IMO, what's the point? It's like saying, "We don't like you as much
anymore...but we're still going to come to your site just as much and buy
just as much stuff."

It's like when somebody sticks their tongue out at me.

So what? As long as it doesn't affect my business, who cares?

Anyway, just my opinion on this PR thing.

Yes I understand what you are saying.

Regarding the second question:

Normally article marketers don't go after search terms which have high PR sites ranking in the first page. Now if those sites had less PR, they would gone for it and made more money. So at that stage, it becomes 'your' business, right? That's the point I'm trying to say.

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

Yes I understand what you are saying.

Regarding the second question:

Normally article marketers don't go after search terms which have high PR sites ranking in the first page. Now if those sites had less PR, they would gone for it and made more money. So at that stage, it becomes 'your' business, right? That's the point I'm trying to say.

Actually, I write articles for keywords that have sites with very high PR
at the top of the SERPs. Doesn't bother me in the least. I still get more
than my share of traffic.

Just because you're not ranked number 1 at Google doesn't mean people
won't find you.

There ARE other ways...tons of them.

Google is not the be all and end all.

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kevinpotts 15 years ago

PPC and lots of One Way Links.....links, links, links....the only thing that matters.

My friend Paul Lynch (a top SEO specialist with a company with 60 SEO staff and working for some of the biggest names in the industry) has recently been working on and perfecting a new PPC engine....with typical cost per acquisition of .20c. Now if that continues long term and he continues to drive down the price, PR certainly will become increasingly unimportant.

Kevin
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marketseeker

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

It is nice to hear that. I had my blog's PR drop from 5 to 2 but I'm still getting good amount of traffic. But the question is, would it have been more if PR5 stayed?

And I also wonder why some people (including SEOs) advice others not to compete against a high PR site for a search term? They say it is better to go for a term which has less PR sites ranking in first page. If PR doesn't matter that much, why do they say so?

I believe there is still some value to PR but that is just my opinion.

not all seo's are afraid of PR, PR is not real anyway or not what you see anyway. PR diminishes in value over a period of time so new links are needed. something like a clickbank account, if you have a click bank account that you leave alone for a while and it has under $100 in it they will start to take $1 until it's gone.

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Francois du_Toit

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Otherwise, it shouldn't affect your bottom line as long as you keep driving traffic to the site.

What do you mean? How are you driving traffic to the site? Not sure I understand what the relevance is with PageRank...

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Francois du_Toit

What do you mean? How are you driving traffic to the site? Not sure I understand what the relevance is with PageRank...

That's my point. Who cares what the PR is? If you just keep sending traffic
to the site, you'll continue to make sales and whether your PR is 5 or 7 or 0
it doesn't matter.

My point is, my site dropping from PR 4 to PR 1 has not affected my bottom
line ONE CENT. So why should I even care what my PR is?

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Francois du_Toit

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

That's my point. Who cares what the PR is? If you just keep sending traffic
to the site, you'll continue to make sales and whether your PR is 5 or 7 or 0
it doesn't matter.

My point is, my site dropping from PR 4 to PR 1 has not affected my bottom
line ONE CENT. So why should I even care what my PR is?

Ok, I understand what you mean. However, what happens when you stop sending traffic to your site? Unless you rank well in Google for certain keywords your bottom line will suffer. This is where PageRank plays a role. It's certainly not the only factor but it plays a role.

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Francois du_Toit

Ok, I understand what you mean. However, what happens when you stop sending traffic to your site? Unless you rank well in Google for certain keywords your bottom line will suffer. This is where PageRank plays a role. It's certainly not the only factor but it plays a role.

Hasn't for me. I got little traffic from Google when I was PR 4 and get about
the same traffic from it now that I am PR 1.

Bulk of my traffic has always come from other sources and the drop in PR
hasn't affected my Google traffic one little bit.

So again, who cares?

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- Steven Wagenheim 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Kingdom_Mines
  
  Then again if you didn't care you would not be ranting here, obviously you are not able to confirm its long term effects.
  
  My 2 cents
  
  Ricky
  
  First of all, I'm not ranting. If you read my original post, I'm simply telling
  people not to get all twisted up over PR.
  
  Second of all, this hasn't been a recent change. My site dropped from PR 4
  to PR 1 a while ago.
  
  And, having just checked my AWStats from 2008 to 2009, my traffic has
  actually increase by 1,000 uniques a month even though my links from
  Google dropped by almost 50%.
  
  Point is...Google does not rule the world like everybody thinks.
  
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  Lance K 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim
  
  Point is...Google does not rule the world like everybody thinks.
  
  Well, not everybody.
  
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Francois du_Toit

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Hasn't for me. I got little traffic from Google when I was PR 4 and get about
the same traffic from it now that I am PR 1.

Bulk of my traffic has always come from other sources and the drop in PR
hasn't affected my Google traffic one little bit.

So again, who cares?

Fair enough. There are many factors that Google takes into consideration and PageRank is only one of them. However, to make a generalized comment such as "Google's PR Don't Mean Squat" is not helpful.

There can be many reasons why your site dropped in PR and why you are still getting the same amount of traffic from Google. Here is one possible reason... Google changed the way they calculate PR last year and it's possible that although your site had a drop in PR that your competitors had the same happen to them meaning the status quo didn't change.

Google is clear on the fact that PageRank plays a role in their algorithm. But, like I said, it's certainly not the only factor.

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Francois du_Toit

Fair enough. There are many factors that Google takes into consideration and PageRank is only one of them. However, to make a generalized comment such as "Google's PR Don't Mean Squat" is not helpful.

There can be many reasons why your site dropped in PR and why you are still getting the same amount of traffic from Google. Here is one possible reason... Google changed the way they calculate PR last year and it's possible that although your site had a drop in PR that your competitors had the same happen to them meaning the status quo didn't change.

Google is clear on the fact that PageRank plays a role in their algorithm. But, like I said, it's certainly not the only factor.

That's fair enough. Yes, it's possible that other sites I was competing
with also took a hit. Don't know. Don't care. All I care about is that even
with the hit, my traffic hasn't suffered. In fact, it's up 1,000 uniques per
month this year over last year.

I guess my point is this. So many people get so bent over PR when their
site goes down. I don't think it's all that big a deal and they should
concentrate more on other things that can get them just as much traffic,
if not more, to their site.

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Francois du_Toit

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

I guess my point is this. So many people get so bent over PR when their site goes down. I don't think it's all that big a deal and they should concentrate more on other things that can get them just as much traffic, if not more, to their site.

Fully agree.

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Martin Luxton 15 years ago

Steven, say it ain't so!

I was so proud two years ago when I got a brand new site to PR5 in less than a month.

Martin
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- Steven Wagenheim 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Martin Luxton
  
  Steven, say it ain't so!
  
  I was so proud two years ago when I got a brand new site to PR5 in less than a month.
  
  Martin
  
  Martin, question. Is the PR the same or higher or lower now and has your
  traffic increased or decreased?
  
  Just curious.
  
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  Martin Luxton 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim
  
  Martin, question. Is the PR the same or higher or lower now and has your
  traffic increased or decreased?
  
  Just curious.
  
  Steven,
  
  It's PR3 now and the traffic is way lower.
  
  Actually, it was a spoof April Fool's site and it got massive traffic in the first week. I haven't done anything with it for 18 months but probably the reason it's still a PR3 is because of the great backlinks it got from authority sites in the first week (e.g. three PR7 news sites in different countries).
  
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George Wright

15 years ago

Francouis,

I really don't know if this is what you are doing, probably not but some people are mixing up PR (page rank the little green bar on top of the browser) With where you are on Google I.E. page one third from the top or page 32 top of the page for your key words.

I have a site PR 0 on top of google page one for my key words.

George Wright

Originally Posted by Francois du_Toit

Ok, I understand what you mean. However, what happens when you stop sending traffic to your site? Unless you rank well in Google for certain keywords your bottom line will suffer. This is where PageRank plays a role. It's certainly not the only factor but it plays a role.

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Francois du_Toit

15 years ago

Originally Posted by George Wright

I really don't know if this is what you are doing, probably not but some people are mixing up PR (page rank the little green bar on top of the browser) With where you are on Google I.E. page one third from the top or page 32 top of the page for your key words.

I have a site PR 0 on top of google page one for my key words.

George Wright

Hi George,

Good point, but to answer your question... No, I am not referring to the PR toolbar. You're right that many people think the little green bar is an accurate reflection of PR while this is not the case.

All the best,

Francois

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Mike Anthony

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

That's my point. Who cares what the PR is? If you just keep sending traffic
to the site, you'll continue to make sales and whether your PR is 5 or 7 or 0
it doesn't matter.

Pagerank even SEO doesn't matter if thats not how you get traffic but it still does in fact matter to most people because a drop in Pr indicates that you have lost links or link strength.

So for people relying on search positioning some of those links would probably include links with anchor text that allowed you to rank and in THEIR case the traffic would fall off and definitely matter.

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cashcow

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Pagerank even SEO doesn't matter if thats not how you get traffic but it still does in fact matter to most people because a drop in Pr indicates that you have lost links or link strength.

So for people relying on search positioning some of those links would probably include links with anchor text that allowed you to rank and in THEIR case the traffic would fall off and definitely matter.

Right, and for those people who lose PR but don't lose rank, it is probably simply because the people below you are still weaker than you in the links department, thus you still outrank them even though your PR has gone down.

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Quentin

15 years ago

I don't imagine any professional worth his salt would put to much creedence on just google. Marketing is an overall program and you should be getting traffic from many sources.

So many people have lost their income over the years through google changing the rules in Adwords, affiliate marketing and many more and then come in here whinning.

I am not saying you are doing this Steven as I know you are a professional marketer but I think too many people put to much emphasis on where they sit in Google.

It is a stastical fact that yahoo links and searchers are much more prone to buy and stay on a page for up to 200% longer that a Google searcher but no one in this forum talks about it much.

We have done our own test and find this to be true in many cases.

Not saying Google is not worth some effort but to many spend 80% of their time on Google for a 20% return.

Quentin

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Zeus66

15 years ago

I've been privately smirking over the bruhaha over PR for years now. It's irrelevant to rankings. Anyone who has a page in the Top 10 at Google for a really competitive term will attest to that fact. I have a PR1 page in the Top 10 (has been for months) for an ultra-competitive term. It's about on-page and off-page SEO. PR is just window dressing.

John

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Zeus66

I've been privately smirking over the bruhaha over PR for years now. It's irrelevant to rankings. Anyone who has a page in the Top 10 at Google for a really competitive term will attest to that fact. I have a PR1 page in the Top 10 (has been for months) for an ultra-competitive term. It's about on-page and off-page SEO. PR is just window dressing.

John

John, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Maybe people will listen to you since you're not a grouchy old sour puss
like I am.

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

John, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Maybe people will listen to you since you're not a grouchy old sour puss
like I am.

LOL It's not like 'listening to one person and not to you'. It is more about getting your queries answered by top people in the forum.

You know what you are doing. So the best way to learn things is by raising doubts on things you say. Isn't that fine?

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

LOL It's not like 'listening to one person and not to you'. It is more about getting your queries answered by top people in the forum.

You know what you are doing. So the best way to learn things is by raising doubts on things you say. Isn't that fine?

If you read my original post, I invited people with a different experience to
share it.

So far, nobody has come here and said, "my site dropped from PR X to PR Y
and my traffic dried up."

And even if it did, there are sure to be other factors involved.

As I said, I have never relied on Google for my traffic. You couldn't find
my sites in the SERPs (using keyword lookup) if your life depended on it.

That was true when this one site was PR 4 and it's true now.

Maybe for people who live and die with Google it matters. I don't know.
I've never had a top ranked site there nor did I ever care if I did or not.

I came from the school of "drive traffic to your site" not wait until it comes
to you. So I can't relate to the mindset of people who bust their humps
trying to get a page 1 listing for keywords with 10 million competing sites.

I compete with those same sites without having to rely on a search
engine listing and get more than my share of traffic.

But like I said, if others have a different experience, I'm more than happy
to listen to it.

I'm simply sharing my own experience.

For me...Google PR don't mean squat.

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

If you read my original post, I invited people with a different experience to
share it.

So far, nobody has come here and said, "my site dropped from PR X to PR Y
and my traffic dried up."

And even if it did, there are sure to be other factors involved.

Maybe those types will come slowly. There are always people who see a drop in something (and the reason may not even be PR).

I came from the school of "drive traffic to your site" not wait until it comes
to you. So I can't relate to the mindset of people who bust their humps
trying to get a page 1 listing for keywords with 10 million competing sites.

I compete with those same sites without having to rely on a search
engine listing and get more than my share of traffic.

But isn't PR related more to Google and their search? There are many ways to get traffic. You can get tons of traffic from social media having PR 0. But when you talk about PR having no effect, you should be concentrating on what PR affects. It affects Google's search listings. I can list sites that rank for keywords they don't target just because they have high PR. One such blog is Problogger.Net (I'm an avid reader of this blog). You might be driving traffic but you are still missing that extra traffic you 'could' have got if you had high PR. Isn't that the same reason why people submit articles to high PR directories mostly?

But like I said, if others have a different experience, I'm more than happy
to listen to it.

I'm simply sharing my own experience.

For me...Google PR don't mean squat.

As I said in my first post, I get good traffic from Google search but I still doubt whether I could have got more if I had high PR. I don't have a clear conclusion about this PR thing. At times, I feel it matters and sometimes, I feel the opposite.

I'm waiting for someone to prove me wrong that PR doesn't REALLY matter.

Cheers,
Ramkarthik

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

You might be driving traffic but you are still missing that extra traffic you 'could' have got if you had high PR.

Ramkarthik

If that were the case, then I should have gotten more traffic from Google
when I was PR 4 than when I dropped to PR 1. I didn't. The traffic is
literally the same.

So personally, I am not seeing the effects.

I can't speak for everybody else, which is why, again, I am more than
happy to listen to other experiences.

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

If that were the case, then I should have gotten more traffic from Google
when I was PR 4 than when I dropped to PR 1. I didn't. The traffic is
literally the same.

So personally, I am not seeing the effects.

I can't speak for everybody else, which is why, again, I am more than
happy to listen to other experiences.

Okay I have a question?

Say I have two blogs in same niche. One blog is PR4 and other is PR1.

I target a keyword and write an article for each of the blog for that keyword (with almost same quality, keyword density etc). Which one has the better chance of ranking in Google?

(I'm concentrating on ranking in Google because we are talking about Google PR)

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

Okay I have a question?

Say I have two blogs in same niche. One blog is PR4 and other is PR1.

I target a keyword and write an article for each of the blog for that keyword (with almost same quality, keyword density etc). Which one has the better chance of ranking in Google?

(I'm concentrating on ranking in Google because we are talking about Google PR)

I honestly can't answer that question because from what I have seen at
Google (some of it blows my mind) I honestly have NO clue why some sites
rank so high.

I could give you examples here for some niches where the top ranked site
is a page of crap, PR of 0 and a site on page 2 of Google is an authority
site with excellent content and a PR of 3 or 4.

It makes no sense whatsoever.

But THAT is the reality.

So the answer to your question is...no clue...not anymore.

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

I honestly can't answer that question because from what I have seen at
Google (some of it blows my mind) I honestly have NO clue why some sites
rank so high.

I could give you examples here for some niches where the top ranked site
is a page of crap, PR of 0 and a site on page 2 of Google is an authority
site with excellent content and a PR of 3 or 4.

It makes no sense whatsoever.

But THAT is the reality.

So the answer to your question is...no clue...not anymore.

So that means we can't write off PR, right?

I never understood their algorithm and guess, I never will. And I'm on the same boat as you. I said in my previous post:

I don't have a clear conclusion about this PR thing. At times, I feel it matters and sometimes, I feel the opposite.

I can only hope for Google to come out and clear things up about PR (which will obviously never happen)

Cheers,
Ramkarthik

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Francois du_Toit

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

So that means we can't write off PR, right?

I never understood their algorithm and guess, I never will. And I'm on the same boat as you. I said in my previous post:

I can only hope for Google to come out and clear things up about PR (which will obviously never happen)

Cheers,
Ramkarthik

Lol, hold your horses...

Google is pretty clear on the role PageRank plays. It plays a role in Google's algorithm and may not be as important as some people think it is but it is a factor Google takes into consideration. I have posted a post on one of my blogs recently that you may find interesting...

PageRank Demystified

All the best,

Francois

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Francois du_Toit

Lol, hold your horses...

Google is pretty clear on the role PageRank plays. It plays a role in Google's algorithm and may not be as important as some people think it is but it is a factor Google takes into consideration. I have posted a post on one of my blogs recently that you may find interesting...

PageRank Demystified

All the best,

Francois

Nice read. Had all the information about pagerank at one place.

In the post, it says (somewhere in the middle)

We use more than 200 signals, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. We then conduct hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, we're able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.

So PageRank, title tags and anchor tags are not the only main factors that decide which page ranks well in Google but there are 200 other signals which they consider.

And that is the reason why we see PR 0 pages outranking PR4 or PR5?

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Francois du_Toit

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

So PageRank, title tags and anchor tags are not the only main factors that decide which page ranks well in Google but there are 200 other signals which they consider.

And that is the reason why we see PR 0 pages outranking PR4 or PR5?

Yes, Google is clear that PageRank plays a role but many people focus too much on PageRank and forget that they use more than 200 "signals".

All the best,

Francois

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by ramkarthik

I never understood their algorithm and guess, I never will. And I'm on the same boat as you. I said in my previous post:

I can only hope for Google to come out and clear things up about PR (which will obviously never happen)

Cheers,
Ramkarthik

Which is why I don't worry about it.

Bottom line for my site:

PR 4 to PR 1

Traffic - No Change.

No, correction...Traffic increased by 1,000 uniques per month.

What else matters?

I mean really, if somebody can tell me what else matters besides how
much traffic you get to your site and how much money you make, I'd
love to hear it.

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Which is why I don't worry about it.

Bottom line for my site:

PR 4 to PR 1

Traffic - No Change.

No, correction...Traffic increased by 1,000 uniques per month.

What else matters?

I mean really, if somebody can tell me what else matters besides how
much traffic you get to your site and how much money you make, I'd
love to hear it.

Agreed. In the end, what matters the most is, how many people you have helped and how much you have earned. And those two, you have in abundance for sure (especially the former)

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utproducts

15 years ago

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by qkz283

Hi Steven,

Care to share what some of your most used traffic methods include?

90% of my traffic comes from writing articles and submitting them to
article directories and other blogs as a guest author. Also from submitting
them to web 2.0 sites like Squidoo.

The other 10% comes from:

Forums
Safelists
FFA Sites
YouTube

That is essentially how I get my traffic.

Search Engines?

I can count my uniques from the SERPs on 20 hands.

If I relied on the SERPs, I'd be broke.

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- Frank Donovan 15 years ago
  
  Hi Steven
  
  My experience is similar to yours and John's, in that any change in PR has had little or no effect on where my sites have ranked in the SERPS and thus the traffic has remained constant.
  
  The only caveat I'd add is that I like to use a high PR site to link to a new site to help kickstart its ranking and I suspect a lower PR may affect that process.
  
  But you're correct in that for any particular site it's the ranking that drives the traffic and if your SERPS is unaffected and your other traffic-generating methods are working, who cares about the PR?
  
  Frank
  
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- Steven Wagenheim 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Kingdom_Mines
  
  Would your email not get pounded with spam??
  
  Ricky
  
  No, because I don't post...I host.
  
  Big difference.
  
  But that's a subject for another time.
  
  Thanks
  
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  Dan C. Rinnert 15 years ago
  
  Google can take its PR and stuff itself.
  
  I have a site that's PR0 and it makes more money for me than another one of my sites that is a PR3.
  
  And, I had a site that was PR3 or PR4 and now it's down to PR0, even though traffic continues to grow. But, maybe that'll mean income will increase on it.
  
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utproducts 15 years ago

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- Steven Wagenheim 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by qkz283
  
  Your method of article marketing is not bad and I known you've seen success, but you will probably agree with me that it is A LOT of hard work.
  
  Thoughts?
  
  Hell yeah. It took me 3 years to get to the point where I can pretty much
  stop writing and still get enough traffic to my sites from what I have out
  there.
  
  I never said MY way was easy.
  
  The only purpose of this thread was to show that PR isn't the be all and
  end all like so many people think.
  
  Heck, if my PR dropped to 0 I wouldn't care.
  
  That SHOULD tell you something.
  
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Ryan6

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

90% of my traffic comes from writing articles and submitting them to
article directories and other blogs as a guest author. Also from submitting
them to web 2.0 sites like Squidoo.

The other 10% comes from:

Forums
Safelists
FFA Sites
YouTube

That is essentially how I get my traffic.

Search Engines?

I can count my uniques from the SERPs on 20 hands.

If I relied on the SERPs, I'd be broke.

You have to remember though that the article submission sites and blogs get the majority of their traffic through Google, so they are helping to link up these connections for you and they also own YouTube which again sends traffic your way.

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TristanPerry

15 years ago

One of my old (large) sites went from 1 million page views per month to 2 million page views in around a year. Its homepage page rank went from PR 4 to PR 0. It still has PR 0 to this day, for some reason. But it's still more successful than before, keeps getting new backlinks, keeps getting unique content etc. Its also right at the top of Google (just below the very established authority sites) for its main, one-word keyword. So its PR has disappeared, but it's still as popular as ever and still very high in the SERPs. The PR change hasn't affected anything, nor has it corresponded to any change with the site. It just randomly lost the PR completely, yet the site is growing more and more popular. I no longer own this site (I created it and owned it for 7-8 years), but it's a good example (IMHO) at how PR can be a meaningless measure.

So yeah, it's just that PR is a bit weird, I try not to look at it too much. It can be a decent measure to look at, but anyone who looks at it waaay too much is on the wrong path.

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The Pension Guy

15 years ago

After reading this thread I went to an old blog of mine (it is online for almost 5 years but quite neglected lately...). Its PR used to be between 4-6. Now, to my great surprise, it has PR 0. Zero.

Next I went to G. Analytics and compared the traffic from last summer and this summer. It is almost the same: visits down by 1.74%, however absolute unique is up by 2.12%; new visits are also up by 3.10%.

It is true, there was a change in the percentage of traffic sent by search engines (-10%) but got way more visits from referring sites - not articles, just people linking to it.

The reason they are linking to it: the blog has quite a number of WordPress related tutorials. And even with the PR 0 if you perform a search for many of those WP related tutorials, my posts come up on the first page in results, as they did when the site had PR 5.

I cannot speak much of the "bottom line" because that blog has never been properly monetized (it was more of a hobby) but its position in SERP and the general traffic numbers didn't really change because of the drastic drop in PR.

So, I would say Steven is right in his OP

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cashcow

15 years ago

I can count my uniques from the SERPs on 20 hands.

AHA! Now we know how you can produce so many articles so quickly - you have 20 hands!!!!

I've also noticed no difference in traffic when PR has dropped (or even gone up) for sites. I guess it could be a delayed effect but I really think the PR that google shows you has little relation to what google itself thinks your PR is. I think they might be just playing around with us on that front.

Honestly, I stopped looking at PR a long time ago. I only care about it if I am fixing to sell a site and that's only because other people seem to think it is important.

Lee

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TristanPerry

15 years ago

It seems thus far that the verdict in this thread is thus:

A change in PR doesn't appear to change SERPs, traffic, or revenue.

What's important?

Traffic and revenue.

Hence to me it's safe to assume that a change in PR isn't the end of the World

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- TristanPerry 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Kingdom_Mines
  
  Any businessman worth his salt will tell you pr (whether online or offline) is somehow linked to profits
  
  Ricky
  
  I meant PR in the Page Rank context, not the public relations context
  
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Paul Hancox

15 years ago

Hi Steven

I'm not personally worried about my PageRank because it's out of my control, anyway. But PR does play a role in RANKINGS.

Over on this thread...

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...0-seconds.html

... I basically said Google's algorithm can be boiled down to three elements:

RELEVANCE, AUTHORITY and POPULARITY.

The AUTHORITY element is determined by PageRank. But it can be trumped by RELEVANCE and POPULARITY.

You say nothing has changed, but does that mean you haven't added to it in the past 3 years? Knowing how much of a writing machine you are, I find that a stretch

But here's the real question: How much MORE traffic might you be getting, had your site remained at PR 4? If you should be getting double the traffic you're actually getting, then it IS making a difference after all.

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ramkarthik

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Paul Hancox

But here's the real question: How much MORE traffic might you be getting, had your site remained at PR 4? If you should be getting double the traffic you're actually getting, then it IS making a difference after all.

Exactly what I tried to say in my previous posts in this thread.

You said it in a better way

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Steven Wagenheim

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Paul Hancox

Hi Steven

I'm not personally worried about my PageRank because it's out of my control, anyway. But PR does play a role in RANKINGS.

Over on this thread...

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...0-seconds.html

... I basically said Google's algorithm can be boiled down to three elements:

RELEVANCE, AUTHORITY and POPULARITY.

The AUTHORITY element is determined by PageRank. But it can be trumped by RELEVANCE and POPULARITY.

You say nothing has changed, but does that mean you haven't added to it in the past 3 years? Knowing how much of a writing machine you are, I find that a stretch

But here's the real question: How much MORE traffic might you be getting, had your site remained at PR 4? If you should be getting double the traffic you're actually getting, then it IS making a difference after all.

Paul, that is true. The site has changed...a lot. Tons more content,
which just goes to show how little PR means. My content has increased,
my traffic has increased, and my sales have increased.

All while my PR has tanked from 4 to 1.

Get my drift?

And as far as how much more traffic I would have got?

No way for anybody to know as it's just guess work.

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iblbuilder

15 years ago

Google's PR is utterly pointless, and the sooner they scrap it the better it will be as thousands of webmaster will have to focus on the only thing that truly matters - converting traffic.

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AlexTampa

15 years ago

PR means nothing for the front end of a site. But it does push through the site, and will mean a lot in long tail queries.

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grainosalt

15 years ago

So as long as you had a high PR at one time you don't have to worry long term about the rank, right?

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Daniel Molano

15 years ago

Steven,

You're right and at the same time wrong.

PageRank by itself will not help your rankings.

However, it's the link juice that PR passes what matters. Which is precisely why high PageRank backlinks are so powerful.

The thing that most people don't realize is that it also applies to internal links.

In short, the reason why some EzineArticles rank so high right after being published and then drop in rankings relatively fast is because they will receive a temporary PR6 backlink from the EZA home page itself.

That pretty much explains it. But yes, the PR of a page is irrelevant to the ranking of that same page.

- Dan

P.S: Authority sites of extremely high PageRank (PR8+) with the right internal linking patterns are unstoppable SEO wise.

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Daniel Molano

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Steven,

You're right and at the same time wrong.

PageRank by itself will not help your rankings.

However, it's the link juice that PR passes what matters. Which is precisely why high PageRank backlinks are so powerful.

The thing that most people don't realize is that it also applies to internal links.

In short, the reason why some EzineArticles rank so high right after being published and then drop in rankings relatively fast is because they will receive a temporary PR6 backlink from the EZA home page itself.

That pretty much explains it. But yes, the PR of a page is irrelevant to the ranking of that same page.

- Dan

P.S: Authority sites of extremely high PageRank (PR8+) with the right internal linking patterns are unstoppable SEO wise.

I'm quoting myself because I also forgot to mention that the the PR also determines how often the Google bot spiders your site.

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traceye 15 years ago

What Daniel said is completely correct.

If you are talking about your own site, your rankings and how much traffic you get has no correlation to Page Rank. I know plenty of sites that compete for very competitive terms that are low PR.

However the link juice from a high PR site can help improve your sites rankings for the anchored link keyword you use on the other site back to your site.

I suspect this is what has happened with your site Steven and why you rank so well, you've been linking back to your own site from various different high PR domains such as ezinearticles, youtube, other article directories and so forth, you therefore rank for those 'keywords' you've used as your link text in your articles.

Whether you believe in the PR of the top level domain, or the PR of the page itself is what helps your position can be debated (and has been debated on this forum many times). I do know that if I get 1 link from a high PR page it will increase my rankings much faster and higher than many links from PR0 sites.

That's the only real use of PR in terms of rankings and traffic. Its the other sites linking to you. Makes absolutely no difference what your own site is.
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HDRider

15 years ago

I have a site that dropped all the way down to PR0 for some reason....however it is ranking higher than ever #2 spot in Google with 12,300,000 results, 7,690,000 in quotes

So it seems page rank doesn't matter

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Zach Booker

15 years ago

Hey Steve,

The thing is let's say your site has a complete twin. All things the same if your twin site has a PR 4 and you have a PR 1 it'll out rank you, every time.

Now obviously you aren't going to have a twin. But if you're making all your money and getting all your traffic from one keyword than i'd raise your PR before someone comes a long with a higher PR and knocks you off. (Yes, it's pretty darn easy.)

If you're getting all your traffic from mainly long tail keywords than no need to worry.

If I were you though i'd go and spend a few hundred bucks and get some PR 6 links. (Or grab some freely assuming it isn't some spammed page.)

This will, in my experience, raise you in the serps a lot and also raise your own PR.

Zach

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Zanar

15 years ago

Personally I think PR is a nice thing but like you say it does not matter as much as some people make it out.

It really bothers me the people who wont link exchange with a directly related great site with PR0, and set a certain min pr for link partners.

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whateverpedia

15 years ago

From what I can deduce my own experience, as well as from here and other forums is that having links from high PR sites just means more likelihood of the SE's finding your link.

My own experience:

2 sites, one in the car niche, one in dating.

Both launched at the same time.

Dating site packed with PLR (unedited), car site with rewritten improved quality plr.

Dating site not touched since launch, car constantly updated.

No linking to dating site, articles, comments, etc. for car site.

After 3 months:

Traffic to dating site 3-4 uniques a day: car site 200-250 per day.

Revenue form car site on average $15 a day, dating site hasn't made a cent yet.

PR of each site (As of 5 minutes ago)

dating site PR3, car site PR1

The PR is a machine's assessment of your page, that's it, nothing more.

As the OP said, Gargle is not the be all and end all of it. In fact there is a whole universe outside of the big G. All you have to do is look.

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Aaron Elliott

13 years ago

The only thing I use PR for is to assess backlinks, otherwise who gives a $#@! about PR!

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