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Here's Why PageRank is Useless

by John S. Rhodes
20 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've recently seen some "buzz" about the importance of PageRank.


Here's how I've seen this play out...
  • In one thread, someone was talking about killer backlinks.
  • In another thread someone was talking about using perfect link text.
  • In still another thread, it was all about article marketing and bio boxes.
In each case, the Warrior was getting all jazzed about PageRank,
as if PageRank was THE ANSWER.

PageRank only partially helps you understand one thing: The potential
of getting traffic to your web site or blog.

It doesn't even directly tell you if your site is important. It doesn't let
you know if you're getting traffic. It hardly helps you understand your
competition, if you even think you need to care about that.

In other words, PageRank doesn't indicate the LEVEL OF TRAFFIC you
are getting, or that you could get. (This is important, folks.)

Consider this...

I'd much rather have a PR 2 site with 20K visitors per month than a
PR 5 site with 5K visitors.

Wouldn't you?

What matters is (targeted) traffic NOT PageRank. You need to think
about the metrics and why they really matter. If you care about your
PageRank you're wasting a lot of time.

~ John
#google #pagerank #traffic #useless #web site traffic
  • Profile picture of the author kayelex
    Very good point. People get very caught up in numbers and Page Rank is one such thing.

    The one area where you can concentrate on Page Rank to your benefit is if you are selling the site. Take advantage of everyone's obsession with Page Rank
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    • Profile picture of the author John S. Rhodes
      Originally Posted by kayelex View Post

      The one area where you can concentrate on Page Rank to your benefit is if you are selling the site. Take advantage of everyone's obsession with Page Rank
      100% true. Great point.

      You can take advantage of the obsession with PageRank when selling
      your site.

      However, when I buy blogs and sites I don't look at PageRank. I look at
      the traffic flow, traffic sources and level of targeting. I care more about
      the quality of the content and number of postings or articles.

      ~ John
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  • Profile picture of the author tazsolmarketing
    A great point more prefer for a high traffic, yet page rank is one of Internet marketing terms that Google has made famous.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Good points.

      What sells, the sizzle or the steak?
      Right now the sizzle of PR sells a lot of people.
      There are many SEO "buzz" that are over used.

      But it does not make it not worthwhile either.

      Each part has it's place.

      Good points, however, on not worshiping one
      at the expense of others.

      Paul
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      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author affiliated survivor
    Assume I have a site optimized for keywords that bring lots of targeted traffic quite easy, but I still need to make backlinks. Do you mean the PR of those "backlink sites" is not important? That a relevant PR 6 backlink will bring my site not faster to the first Google page than a relevant PR 1 backlink?
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    • Profile picture of the author Andy Immotna
      Originally Posted by affiliated survivor View Post

      Assume I have a site optimized for keywords that bring lots of targeted traffic quite easy, but I still need to make backlinks. Do you mean the PR of those "backlink sites" is not important? That a relevant PR 6 backlink will bring my site not faster to the first Google page than a relevant PR 1 backlink?
      I believe this is one of the importance of pagerank. Having your site linked to a site that has high PR gets you more 'noticed' by SEs. And this is one factor of ranking your site in search results...

      But of course this is not the main factor that will make your site rise to search pages, it's just part of the pie.

      But the immediate value of PR is when you're going to sell your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Peters Benn
    Pagerank is only a very small part of how Google orders sites in search results (not withstanding all the manual fixes they use) and is fairly pointless in my opinion as it is like looking at the part of an iceberg above the water...
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  • Profile picture of the author affiliated survivor
    So what shall we do? Besides trying to achieve the optimal on page SEO? If PR is no guideline, what is?
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by affiliated survivor View Post

      So what shall we do? Besides trying to achieve the optimal on page SEO? If PR is no guideline, what is?
      There is only one metric that really matters when looking at a potential backlink, that is targeted traffic. This is the most important metric for your own website, next to conversions and profits.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Peters Benn
    I would say where a site appears in the results is all that matters. So looking at a sites position is the best indicator. After that, page rank. A long way after in my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetMarketingIQ
    Some people will get it and some people won't. It's like the Homer Simpson mentality. No matter how you present the facts, some people will never clue in. Mmmmm Donuts.
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  • Profile picture of the author affiliated survivor
    Yes, I don´t get it. If I know the position of my site but want a higher rank, how should I improve my rankings when it´s useless to think: "I try to generate as much backlinks possible with the highest PR possible."
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  • Profile picture of the author affiliated survivor
    I get nearly no traffic from my backlinks. Nearly all, let´s say all, visitors come frome Google, Yahoo, some minor search engines and RSS feeds and web directories ranking in the serps.
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by affiliated survivor View Post

      I get nearly no traffic from my backlinks. Nearly all, let´s say all, visitors come frome Google, Yahoo, some minor search engines and RSS feeds and web directories ranking in the serps.
      Hi affiliated survivor,

      Sounds like you need to do a much better job of choosing where to get backlinks. Most businesses that spend years promoting their website by getting relevant back links find that the overwhelming majority of their traffic comes from those quality backlinks. When you've done a great job of building backlinks, you'll barely notice if your site drops from the SERP, traffic will still be strong.
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  • Profile picture of the author anuj291
    Page rank is important and you can attain it by combination of all the above ..
    If you have an authority site then you might get better advertising results as well..
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    Content Writing
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  • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
    Banned
    Originally Posted by John S. Rhodes View Post

    I'd much rather have a PR 2 site with 20K visitors per month than a PR 5 site with 5K visitors.

    Wouldn't you?
    ~ John
    Of course, but that's a stupid question. I'd rather have one visitor from a PR10 page that pays me $10 million dollars, than 1 million visitors from a PR 2 page that pay me nothing. Wouldn't you? I'd rather money fall from the tree in my front yard by the millions instead of having to build websites at all....wouldn't you?

    Page Rank does matter, but it's not a miracle worker. You can get a high PR, yet muck everything else up and you'll likely get zero traffic. That doesn't make PR useless, it makes the webmaster useless.

    Still, if anyone has sites with high PR pages they aren't interested in, I'll gladly take them. And since they're so useless, you may as well give them away.
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by blackhatcat View Post

      Of course, but that's a stupid question. I'd rather have one visitor from a PR10 page that pays me $10 million dollars, than 1 million visitors from a PR 2 page that pay me nothing. Wouldn't you? I'd rather money fall from the tree in my front yard by the millions instead of having to build websites at all....wouldn't you?

      Page Rank does matter, but it's not a miracle worker. You can get a high PR, yet muck everything else up and you'll likely get zero traffic. That doesn't make PR useless, it makes the webmaster useless.

      Still, if anyone has sites with high PR pages they aren't interested in, I'll gladly take them. And since they're so useless, you may as well give them away.
      Hi blackhatcat,

      Many different folks are giving them up every day. You can find plenty of them at these sites:

      www.tdnam.com
      Domain name auctions to purchase quality expired and deleting names
      Deleted Domain Names
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    • Profile picture of the author John S. Rhodes
      Originally Posted by blackhatcat View Post

      Of course, but that's a stupid question. I'd rather have one visitor from a PR10 page that pays me $10 million dollars, than 1 million visitors from a PR 2 page that pay me nothing. Wouldn't you? I'd rather money fall from the tree in my front yard by the millions instead of having to build websites at all....wouldn't you?

      Page Rank does matter, but it's not a miracle worker. You can get a high PR, yet muck everything else up and you'll likely get zero traffic. That doesn't make PR useless, it makes the webmaster useless.
      From Google: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages
      by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages
      that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are
      more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

      PageRank doesn't put money in my pocket any more than the vehicle
      identification number makes my car worth $58,500. It's merely a
      derivative. It's a measurement. It's a reflection of what Google thinks
      about your site.

      PageRank -- in and of itself -- does NOT drive traffic. It doesn't DO
      anything at all. It's a metric. It's data.

      That said...

      I'd rather have a high PR than a low PR.

      And again, I'd rather have high traffic and low PR than low traffic and
      high PR. (I care about traffic and conversions, not PR.)

      ~ John
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  • Profile picture of the author Greg Jacobs
    Lol.. I have a site that has been both PR3 and Deindexed by Google for the last year

    Not sure what that tells us about the value of pagerank...
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  • Profile picture of the author Jenie0109
    this is what im talking about!
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