[Case study] Does Google treat PageRank for each "ugly" URL as unique?

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Ok so here's an interesting observation I've made decisively today. I say decisively today because I've dabbled in the past but couldn't put my finger on it.

It's clear to me now that Google PageRank is assigned to a specific URL, NOT a specific page. This may seem arbitrary to some, but in fact it's quite important to understand this, especially as a precursor in this case study.

So for example, even though http://domain.tld/p=234 (A) may reference the same page as http://domain.tld/my-page (B) (in other words, (A) and (B) load the same page), only the one that has any links built to it will increase in PageRank. If links are built only to (A), then (A) may get a PR 2 (for example), while (B) will remain a PR n/a or PR 0.

Ok so no big deal right? Well, it gets much more interesting.

A url is broken up by:
<PROTOCOL>://<SUB>.DOMAIN.TLD/QUERYSTRINGKEY=QUERYSTRINGVALUE&...
(There's other stuff but for the sake of this case study they do not require mentioning.)

Let's assume that (A) becomes a PR4 (and this is exactly what I've observed on the website I tested this on). The link structure is:

http://domain.tld/p=453

So, QUERYSTRING broken down looks like this:

QUERYSTRINGKEY: p
QUERYSTRINGVALUE: 453

Now here's where it gets interesting. If I change QUERYSTRINGKEY to something else, my PR becomes n/a. HOWEVER, I can change my QUERYSTRINGVALUE to anything at all, and the PageRank will still carry over. So you ask me, "Even if it returns a 404 page?" Absolutely, yes! Remember it's not the page but the link that carries PR.

So the rule is, as long as the rest of the url remains completely unchanged, I can manipulate ANY of the QUERYSTRINGVALUES and maintain the same PageRank. Anyone that's been around on the net a while knows that this therefore means you can potentially "generate" as many equal PR pages as you want, with different content, links etc.

You can even do this on Wordpress. a Wordpress install that has not changed its permalink structure from the default (so every post's URL QUERYSTRINGKY is in fact p=.....) all of a sudden carries the EXACT SAME PR as every other post, even if only one of the posts is responsible for the PageRank.

For example,

http://domain.tld/p=453 - PR 4 (real page, PR built to this page)
http://domain.tld/p=1 - PR4 (real page, PR "adopted" from p=453)
http://domain.tld/p=WhateverNonenseITypeIn - PR 4 (Page doesn't exist - 404, PR "adopted" from p=453)

Well, to me this is either an enormous loophole that can be plundered by anyone, or I'm missing something critical, because this means I can build as many "virtual" PR 4 pages as I like so long as one of them was graded as a PR4. I've actually seen this very thing being exploited by some shady SEO guys that build links to exit pages on huge authority websites by simply getting the exit page's URL indexed with their custom QURYSTRINGVALUE. For example,

http://bigauthority.tld/exit.php?to=...w.mydomain.tld

Which, by the way, also adds their link to the content of the exit page. So now, all of a sudden, they've got a bunch of high authority, high PR contextual links coming back to their site from completely unknowing website owners.

It also begs the question, if I'm building links to one post about hamsters, and building links to another post about rats (completely unrelated, but blog's about rodents, for example), then if Google is not distinguishing between the 2 pages to determine PageRank, does it just pool all the links together to do so? And, what happens to the anchor text diversity - is that also pooled?

This study opens doors to a lot of questions and few answers.

It's interesting though. VERY interesting... And a big gap in the Google PR algo, unless, as I've said, I'm missing something...
#case #google #pagerank #study #treat #ugly #unique #url

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