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The Truth About PageRank

by UMS
20 replies
  • SEO
    • |
PageRank seems to get endlessly discussed in this forum and the same questions and misinformation get recycled.

While you generally have to be a little careful of what Matt Cutts says in his videos, I think this one is spot on.

#matt cutts #pagerank #truth
  • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
    Interesting how he mentions that PR can be manually lowered when people sell links. He had another video about this.

    Goes to show it's not just SEOs who care about PR.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeff Falzone
      Originally Posted by Backlinko View Post

      Interesting how he mentions that PR can be manually lowered when people sell links. He had another video about this.

      Goes to show it's not just SEOs who care about PR.
      It's about brand and social popularity too.

      For example if I would post an artucle on a topic with the same words and I rank it on serps made in a wordpress blog by getting logged into my gplus account and in an alternative world a popular celebrity would post the EXACT post with the SAME words by getting logged in its gplus account that has tons and tons of popularity, which of them you think would rank better huh?
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      • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
        Originally Posted by Zack93 View Post

        It's about brand and social popularity too.

        For example if I would post an artucle on a topic with the same words and I rank it on serps made in a wordpress blog by getting logged into my gplus account and in an alternative world a popular celebrity would post the EXACT post with the SAME words by getting logged in its gplus account that has tons and tons of popularity, which of them you think would rank better huh?
        Ranking and PR are two different things.
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        • Profile picture of the author aygabtu
          Prefer higher SERP than PR. That is where you get your traffic, not from PR.
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          • Profile picture of the author kaytav
            Originally Posted by aygabtu View Post

            Prefer higher SERP than PR. That is where you get your traffic, not from PR.
            Even I would go with rankings rather than just wondering when my PR is gonna increase. If you have your keywords ranked well, you are bound to get some traffic from it. Just having PR and no rankings won't help you much.
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        • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
          Originally Posted by Backlinko View Post

          Ranking and PR are two different things.
          Indeed. PR is more of a trust factor. Same with DA and PA. I can find DA18 sites outranking DA60 sites for certain keywords. Same with PR. We can find PR2 sites outranking PR6 sites.

          Though I do admit all are important factors in their own right. I'm a firm believer if you do good keyword research, do proper onpage SEO, build your brand AND build quality backlinks, you can outrank the high PR authority sites.
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          • Profile picture of the author satrap
            Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

            I'm a firm believer if you do good keyword research, do proper onpage SEO, build your brand AND build quality backlinks, you can outrank the high PR authority sites.
            Agreed 100%. I have seen it with my own posts and blogs and with other people's, pages with lower PR outranking pages with higher PR in the serps. It happens all the time.

            That said, I would thing pages with higher PR probably have a little advantage when it comes to ranking. But then there are lots of other factors as well.
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            • Profile picture of the author seophalanx
              Google Page Rank is a complex algorithm designed not to be easily manipulated by web masters or Search Engine Optimization experts. The page rank of your site is determined by the number of quality back links coming into your site. The more quality back links you have, the higher the page ranking. Another factor Google takes into consideration is the quality of the site.
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              • Profile picture of the author UMS
                Originally Posted by seophalanx View Post

                Google Page Rank is a complex algorithm designed not to be easily manipulated by web masters or Search Engine Optimization experts.
                It's VERY easy to manipulate PR, hence all the sites that sell backlinks on pages with high faked PR and sites with faked PR that are sold on flippa.

                Another factor Google takes into consideration is the quality of the site.
                Do you have special inside knowledge to back up that claim?
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                • Profile picture of the author dburk
                  Hi UMS,

                  It seems people tend to lump things into site level concepts. That false notion about search engines indexing and ranking websites is where most of the SEO confusion seems to stem from. Search engines do not index and rank websites, they index and rank individual web pages.

                  Websites do not have PR, and that naive notion, about site level factors, is behind a large portion of SEO confusion and myths.


                  To quote Matt Cutts in that video:
                  So just as a review, PageRank is Google's opinion about how reputable a page is...
                  Note that he always refers to PageRage as a factor that applies to individual pages, never to websites.

                  As you read through threads on this forum you will see many discussions where posters constantly refer to the website's PR. There is no such thing.

                  I have found the most reliable barometer of a Warrior Forum member's SEO knowledge is to note whether his posts are consistent with that simple fundamental concept of how search engines actually work. Invariable, those that have the intelligence to understand that concept, and demonstrates that this basic knowledge of SEO is internalized in his thinking, is a fairly reliable sign of someone who actually understands SEO, for how can you formulate accurate knowledge and reasonable theory, without understanding the most basic fundamental knowledge?

                  Can you actually truly understand more advanced concepts if you haven't even understood or accepted the basics? Are not all advanced concepts built upon the basics? Without an understanding of the fundamentals you will likely end up going down the rabbit whole.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                    Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                    As you read through threads on this forum you will see many discussions where posters constantly refer to the website's PR. There is no such thing.

                    Many people will refer to website PR when they are perfectly aware that it is PAGE rank. Its the nature of Human's in language to shorten things and in such cases it simply means the home page PR. Its kind of the old argument about dofollow links people bother themselves with . Sure there is no dofollow tag but its short for saying "links that are not nofollowed". Its semantics. Now if they really do not understand that websites do not have PR thats a whole other matter but the nature of humans and language is what it is and doesn't mean anything much.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
                      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                      Many people will refer to website PR when they are perfectly aware that it is PAGE rank. Its the nature of Human's in language to shorten things and in such cases it simply means the home page PR. Its kind of the old argument about dofollow links people bother themselves with . Sure there is no dofollow tag but its short for saying "links that are not nofollowed". Its semantics. Now if they really do not understand that websites do not have PR thats a whole other matter but the nature of humans and language is what it is and doesn't mean anything much.
                      This.

                      Most people understand (at least I hope they understand) that PR is page-specific.

                      The reason people say "a PR6 site" is to give people an idea of the site's quality. Although some PR6+ site are crap, most are not.

                      And in most cases a high PR homepage translates to more internal pages with PR than a lower PR homepage.
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                      • Profile picture of the author dburk
                        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                        Many people will refer to website PR when they are perfectly aware that it is PAGE rank. Its the nature of Human's in language to shorten things and in such cases it simply means the home page PR. Its kind of the old argument about dofollow links people bother themselves with . Sure there is no dofollow tag but its short for saying "links that are not nofollowed". Its semantics. Now if they really do not understand that websites do not have PR thats a whole other matter but the nature of humans and language is what it is and doesn't mean anything much.
                        Hi Mike,

                        Yes, I do realize that many people are aware "that it is PAGE rank", but sometimes refer to the homepage PR as the "website PR". My point was that the folks that often refer to "website PR" do so because that is how they often habitually think of it, even though they know it is wrong. And due to this habit of "thinking" of SEO at the site level, they often reason incorrectly, at the site level. The most obvious manifestation of this habitually incorrect reasoning is the constant referencing of "website PR", instead of "page PR", or "homepage PR". And yes, when challenged, they will clarify their words, but do they correct their thinking?

                        I was trying to point out that it is easy to spot a poster that knows his stuff when you see the correct information in his posts, while you cannot tell if a poster, that habitually posts incorrect information, actually knows what he is talking about. Looking for clues like this can help readers separate the experienced and knowledgeable, from the clueless we so often see posting on this board.

                        The constant practice of referring to homepage PR as "website PR", on a forum like this, propagates and perpetuates the incorrect notion of "site level" SEO factors. That habit makes it difficult for those trying to learn something if they take the words to mean literally what is written.

                        Originally Posted by Backlinko View Post

                        This.

                        Most people understand (at least I hope they understand) that PR is page-specific.

                        The reason people say "a PR6 site" is to give people an idea of the site's quality. Although some PR6+ site are crap, most are not.

                        And in most cases a high PR homepage translates to more internal pages with PR than a lower PR homepage.
                        Hi Backlinko,

                        There is no such thing as "a PR6 site". And yes, I agree that people say that to imply the sites quality. I was just pointing out that it is inaccurate to refer to "sites" as having PR, and PR is not an indication of site quality, just the amount of link juice pointed at it. It may often correlate with quality, but only when it is naturally earned PR from a range of relevant websites. I do this because it may help those that are trying to learn about SEO.
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                        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                          All totally pointless. People will refer to it the way that they wish and those who understand SEo know what they mean. Semantic arguments are so pointless. The answer is for people to learn SEO not quibble about words.

                          Might as well argue that people should not call Phillip's screw drivers what they do because it will imply that a guy named phillips owns them and confuse them. NO! They need to go learn about tools. thats the issue.

                          So Yes I have a PR6 Website. Its a site that has a PR6 page. the page belongs to the site so yes the site owns it. I'm not going to say each time when I am talking about domains for example "a Domain that has a PR6 page". Pointless minutiae is not going to play even a small part in my carpel tunnel issues. You can argue about it some more but it aint happening.
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                          • Profile picture of the author dburk
                            Hi Mike,

                            It's wonderful that you have learned this, however many others have not. And yes, if you are a professional mechanic, you should know that the difference in a flat head screwdriver vs a Phillips head screwdriver. If you constantly refer to a flat head screwdriver as a phillips screwdriver, it is likely to cause some confusion in discussions with student mechanics (even though it is merely semantics).

                            Sometimes subtleties are important, particularly when learning. This seems to be a major stumbling block for most people learning SEO, unless they are being taught by a true expert, most people waste a lot of time and follow a lot of bad advice due to this particular gap in their knowledge.

                            Based on the postings in this forum, it seems to be one of the most common gaps in webmaster knowledge of SEO. It also seems to be at the root of most misguided notions spread across this forum, so in my opinion it is worth noting. Not for your benefit, Mike, but for others.
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                            • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                              Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                              Hi Mike,

                              It's wonderful that you have learned this, however many others have not. And yes, if you are a professional mechanic, you should know that the difference in a flat head screwdriver vs a Phillips head screwdriver. If you constantly refer to a flat head screwdriver as a phillips screwdriver, it is likely to cause some confusion in discussions with student mechanics (even though it is merely semantics).
                              Completely out of context. Its still called a phillips screwdriver. There is no name change to make it easier for newbs to not get misled. People have to learn tools and they have to learn SEO. If someone saying "domains PR" throws them off then they need to go and learn. Arguing about nomenclature will get you nowhere Don and will serve no point. the domain aftermarket for example is going to continue to talk about Domain Pr its just simply too clumsy to talk about "a domain with a high PR page" each time your reference a domain

                              Based on the postings in this forum, it seems to be one of the most common gaps in webmaster knowledge of SEO. It also seems to be at the root of most misguided notions spread across this forum
                              NOt even close to the root of the learning problem on this forum. The number one thing at the root of this forum's problem is that it is driven by make money easy and quick with a click of a button and with no real business plan.

                              Very close to that is that everybody here tends to think that Seo can be learned from this forum when in fact 99% of the people here are basically just taught the kind of Seo that sells in WSOs and are regurgitating it even when not directly selling it.

                              If they learn to say "domain with a a PR page" it won't make a lick of difference. You and I know they will still run down the short and the easy and swear thats SEO.
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                  • Profile picture of the author yukon
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                    Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                    As you read through threads on this forum you will see many discussions where posters constantly refer to the website's PR.
                    Like the guy that posted the duplicate threads here on the SEO forum today, the top 40 highest PR article sites. :rolleyes:

                    That will get him exactly 40 PRna/PR0 links (nice).

                    [edit]
                    http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...rectories.html
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  • Profile picture of the author paydayloan
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      I don't now how many times the idea that Pagerank has anything to do with content needs to be debunked before people stop claiming that PR is a content issue fresh or otherwise.
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  • Profile picture of the author RyanLB
    I try to pay as little attention to PageRank as I can, since as people said 99% of the time you are going to be placing your link on a page with no PR.

    I just use it as a very vague metric for the authority Google gives a particular page or domain. In general, I figure that links on higher PR domains, even if the page that it is posted on is PR N/A or 0, will be more worthwhile, since Google seems to view the domain itself as an authority or trustworthy site.

    But Google knows that with PR they are giving SEOs another tool to game the algorithm. If it was the end all be all, they would hide it. I'm pretty sure their linkspam algorithm also checks for websites that have too high of a percentage of their links coming from pages and sites with PR as well, since that would be unnatural.
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  • Profile picture of the author fmac
    Interesting however as a service site I really don't care except getting linked to a high pr ranked site
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