Google PR Fact And Fiction...What Does It Really Mean To Your Site?

Being an administrator of quite a few websites and the goto guy for many of the day to day operations, promoting and editor of many of these sites, I find myself shaking my head at many of the beliefs that webmasters have regarding aspects of their SEO and promoting of their sites.

Here is a thread from one my SEO forums which touches on the misconceptions about the Google PR system:

Member Post - Can anyone help me out here we have a google pr of 3 how do i get this higher i have already over 1000 websites linking to my site whats my next step check out our site? Thanks so much btw this forum is kool

SEO Pro - Don't put too much faith in your PR ranking. Yes it's good when you need to exchange links but don't expect to much from a higher PR. Better results will come from proper marketing and optimization geared towards your target market.

Member Reply - Your pr is also 3 im looking for someone that can pick up my pr to a 4 or a 5

Now disregarding the fact that his reply was condicending at best, he like many is completely off base in his conception of what PR means. So lets take a look at a few facts.

Heres what the pagerank encyclopedia says:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, EHandler: no quick summary. Follow link. (by page A, EHandler: no quick summary. Follow link. (for page B. But, EHandler: no quick summary. Follow link. (Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, EHandler: no quick summary. Follow link. (or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

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In otherwords you could have some of the most important pages on the net linkwise, and near zero traffic with a high PR... conversely you could have some of the weakest links according to PR and have a volume of traffic to kill for.

Page rank is really misunderstood. It isn't a clear, definative way to view a page as being "at the top" of any given search or even as a traffic benchmark. Take engineseeker.com vs netshoppers.com ; We both have solid PR5s yet engineseeker is ranked 3800 (up280) with an average of a 300/M daily traffic. Netshoppers is at 210,000 (D62,000) with an 8/M. We both have 5s, but there is an obvious difference.

Don't give PR more credit than it's value as a link evaluation...thats about all it is. Shoot for quality backlinks,targeted keyword phrases and PPC if you can afford it, you'll be much happier with the outcome a couple months down the road. You will see your sites PR rise with the quality of the backlinks that you gain. As your links go so does your websites PR.

I really try to post articles that are easy to read and understand with a ton of enjoyability and a hint of credibilty. We all know that he who retires with the highest Alexa ranking wins! or... gets a condo in Florida as a consolation prize. Can I have my condo now? :)

Steven Havill, Sr.
Founding partner of IC Online Services.
Current projects include NetShoppers.com - Shopping Directory, USFree.Net - Progressive Internet Community Portal and Areforever.com...etc We have many projects on the boards along stickits on all the monitors of the ones we just don't have time to get to. If you get a chance stop by to say hello, we are always around to help in any way we can.

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