Google PR is the biggest load of crap ever. Their latest PR updates are totally worthless. It is almost like they find humor in pissing off the entire webmaster community.

Let's take an existing PR5 site and get the number of links shown in Google (and yahoo for giggles to get a more accurate account)

Existing PR5 site (for the last 18 months this site has not went up or down from PR5.)

http://www.sportsoutlaw.com
Site created: March 2004
Domain Registered Until: Feb 2007
Google Links: Results 1 - 10 of about 259 linking to http://www.sportsoutlaw.com/
Yahoo Links: 1 - 10 of about 7,460 for link:http://www.sportsoutlaw.com

259 links (showing in Google) and he has a PR5 site. Alrighty lets try a PR3 site that has been PR 3 for atleast the last two major PR Updates.

http://www.mustangevolution.com
Site Created: May 2003
Domain Registered Until: July 2015
Google Links: Results 1 - 10 of about 227 linking to http://www.mustangevolution.com/
Yahoo Links: 1 - 10 of about 105,000 for link:http://www.mustangevolution.com

hmmmm.... 227 links in google = PR3
Also notice the huge difference in links between Mustangevolution and Sportsoutlaw in Yahoo. *scratches chin*

Alrighty now you ready for the real kicker?

Let's take a site that just recieved a PR6 site with the last update. So we got this new PR6 site (as of last PR update). Anyone care to take a guess when this site was created?

Anyone?

June 2006.

That's right folks. It got it's lovely PR6 in 2 months. Well maybe its a popular site with tons of backlinks Bama? I wish that was the case... but sadly its not.

Now I am not knocking this site at all. Its an awesome site with a great design. I am only using this one as an example because it blew me out of the water when I saw it was a PR6 site. Just using this to prove my point with Google.

http://www.nerdpoint.com
Site Created: June 2006
Domain Registered Until: May 2007
Results 1 - 4 of about 5 linking to http://www.nerdpoint.com.
1 - 10 of about 1,360 for link:http://www.nerdpoint.com

So you tell me. Does that add up?

Now before you tell me that I shouldnt be concerned about PR be very aware that I do not believe PR = higher rankings. What my problem with is the fact that Google is the number 1 search engine in the world and they are acting like a start up company. Their search engine is a mess, huge sites have gone mostly supplemental, and the issue Pagerank updates with little to no care at all how accurate they are at all. It's like PR is now just thrown together and issued to get more press. It seems they are only using PR to get publicity now. They just simply dont care enough to put any effort into making it look remotely realistic.

Well I look forward to seeing what you think of all this.

PR is all based on a formula and - as you probably know - it's more about the PR of the sites linking to you than the quantity of links. So it's perfectly logical. Also remember that the number of outgoing links, on the pages linking to you, makes a difference.

A good example is one of my sites which was brand new. I linked to it from 3 of my other sites having PR7, PR6 and Pr6. Then I also submitted to approx 3 decent directories. The result? After the following PR update my brand new site had a PR6.

And you should also remember that the PR scale 1-10 is just for visibility purpose. The actual PR value is a much larger number and the 1-10 scale is calculated by some kind of logarithmic scale. So there is actually high and low PRx's - that meaning if two sites have a PR6 the one could have a very low PR6 almost only PR5 and the other site could have a high PR6 almost PR7. And the larger the PR value the bigger difference there can be between sites having the same visible PR.

So you should just score a couple of good PR6 links before the next toolbar update and you'll probably have at least a PR5.

Or buy some PR8 and PR7 links and you'll maybe have a PR7 by next toolbar update...

Maybe you should of asked permission to use your examples.

Edit: I am fine with you using my site as an example, but I'm just saying it would have been courteous of you to ask.

uhm.. this is nonsense...

1 link from a PR 7 site could make your site PR 6 .. so why this comparison???

I don't really believe in PR either. Of course, I don't like it when one of my site drops from PR4 to PR2 for no reason, but I'm not too concerned about that, as long as the hits and links keeps coming.

Maybe PR is more of a way to see if your site is linked with big quality sites. In that optic, I like a high PR.

Anyway, don't get too concerned about that, unless your traffic drops and you stop making money.

As said by stefanjuhl, PR is a representation of both the number of links and the quality of those links, so you cant base your assumptions on the number of the links those websites have, some site might have 1000 backlinks but most of them are coming from PR0 pages with 100 outgoing link on each page, got my point?

Having said that, the last 2 PR updates were a bit weird, I've seen some websites getting a PR they don't deserve, but we cant base this as a general rule.

I for one don't care much about PR, but I do care about building links the correct way which leads to higher search engine rankings.

the anchor text of the links pointing to your site is more important than the PR imho...

http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/

Page rank is a simple (well, not really) function of whos got what pointing to what.

And really, does page rank do a thing for you?

My Pr2 site comes up over some pr8 sites for certain search terms.

when you drop from a pr5 to a pr2, has anyone noticed any traffic changes? because i sure haven't.

Decrease in linkpopularity and thereby pagerank would often affect your rankings, but you wouldn't see them at the same time. The toolbar update is first updated a long time after you've been credited with more link popularity due to new links. The pagerank you see in the toolbar isn't necessarily the same as your current link popularity as calculated in the index for being part of determing rankings.

Originally Posted by Digit

Maybe you should of asked permission to use your examples.

Edit: I am fine with you using my site as an example, but I'm just saying it would have been courteous of you to ask.

It's not like I am putting your site down It's free publicity anyway.

uhm.. this is nonsense...

1 link from a PR 7 site could make your site PR 6 .. so why this comparison???

I have just as many PR7 links as nerdpoint. (which looking from nerdpoints links in Google its 0)

Another thing I forgot to mention is the fact that my subforums have a higher Pagerank than my mainpage. It's a fact that the only thing they are doing is updating PR0 pages. They aren't bothering to update sites that has PR already.

Why do I care so much? Because its the biggest search engine in the world and they can't get it right (and if they call this right then that's just pathetic.)

Originally Posted by stefanjuhl

PR is all based on a formula and - as you probably know - it's more about the PR of the sites linking to you than the quantity of links. So it's perfectly logical. Also remember that the number of outgoing links, on the pages linking to you, makes a difference.

A good example is one of my sites which was brand new. I linked to it from 3 of my other sites having PR7, PR6 and Pr6. Then I also submitted to approx 3 decent directories. The result? After the following PR update my brand new site had a PR6.

And you should also remember that the PR scale 1-10 is just for visibility purpose. The actual PR value is a much larger number and the 1-10 scale is calculated by some kind of logarithmic scale. So there is actually high and low PRx's - that meaning if two sites have a PR6 the one could have a very low PR6 almost only PR5 and the other site could have a high PR6 almost PR7. And the larger the PR value the bigger difference there can be between sites having the same visible PR.

So you should just score a couple of good PR6 links before the next toolbar update and you'll probably have at least a PR5.

Or buy some PR8 and PR7 links and you'll maybe have a PR7 by next toolbar update...

He has 5 links in google. None of them are PR7 and Pr8 sites. I challenge anyone to find a PR7 or 8 site that links to nerdpoint.

I appreciate the publicity lol, I don't know a thing about seo, and we have like 5 links in good but u have to add in the www.
We were predicted to only get a PR3 and ended up with a 6... I am sure it will go down but hopefully not!

It really is amazingly pathetic sometimes how google works...

I saw a new forum with very little activity and backlinks jump from a PR2 to a PR8 in 3 months a belive. Sad.

BamaStangGuy, you really can't compare links from different PR7 sites.

The first and simplest reason is that the probably don't have the same number of outgoing links.

The second and more important reason, is that, as I wrote earlier, the 1 to 10 scale is made through a logarithmic function. E.g.

1 - 9 points = PR1
10 - 99 points = PR2
100 - 999 points = PR3
1000 - 9999 points = PR4
10000 - 99999 points = PR5
100000 - 999999 points = PR6
1000000 - 9999999 points = PR7
10000000 - 99999999 points = PR8
....

Note, it's just a simple example. But you should get the point that the actual link popularity measurement of a site is far more than just a 1 to 10 scale. As you can see in the example, there can be an almost 10 fold difference on a Pr7...

Regarding your mainpage having less PR than your subforums - do you link from ALL subpages to your mainpage? You should consider your internal linking ...

Originally Posted by stefanjuhl

BamaStangGuy, you really can't compare links from different PR7 sites.

The first and simplest reason is that the probably don't have the same number of outgoing links.

The second and more important reason, is that, as I wrote earlier, the 1 to 10 scale is made through a logarithmic function. E.g.

1 - 9 points = PR1
10 - 99 points = PR2
100 - 999 points = PR3
1000 - 9999 points = PR4
10000 - 99999 points = PR5
100000 - 999999 points = PR6
1000000 - 9999999 points = PR7
10000000 - 99999999 points = PR8
....

Note, it's just a simple example. But you should get the point that the actual link popularity measurement of a site is far more than just a 1 to 10 scale. As you can see in the example, there can be an almost 10 fold difference on a Pr7...

If you honestly can sit there and tell me that a site that is 2 months old, with no visible links from anything higher than a PR4 website and very little traffic (compared to sportsoutlaw and Mustangevolution) deserves to be slapped with a PR6 then I don't know what to say to that. It's absurd.

It's the principle of the thing. I don't think PR means much but it is there and Google hypes it. If they are going to have it atleast use it correctly.

Regarding your mainpage having less PR than your subforums - do you link from ALL subpages to your mainpage? You should consider your internal linking ...

Yes I do actually :closedeyes:

Okay, I was just currious about the internal links because that would be a typical reason.

And yes, a two months old site can get a PR6 just like that - by having high PR pages linking to it... Remember that PR is only a measure of link popularity and has nothing to do with site-age or traffic!

Also, have in mind that Google only shows a very little bit of the links they've found. Use Yahoo instead - e.g. https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.co...&bwmo=d&bwmf=s where you can see that nerdpoint.com has lots of good links.

Originally Posted by stefanjuhl

Okay, I was just currious about the internal links because that would be a typical reason.

And yes, a two months old site can get a PR6 just like that - by having high PR pages linking to it... Remember that PR is only a measure of link popularity and has nothing to do with site-age or traffic!

Also, have in mind that Google only shows a very little bit of the links they've found. Use Yahoo instead - e.g. https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.co...&bwmo=d&bwmf=s where you can see that nerdpoint.com has lots of good links.

and Mustangevolution.com and sportsoutlaw have even better links

My point is it doesn't deserve a PR6. Period. Google shows no links in their search engine that would warrnant a PR6. It is their search engine that has PR not yahoo. If they are going to give a PR6 to a site then common sense says that they should reflect that in their links they show. However, they don't.

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.co...wm=Explore+URL

Notice the PR9 Netscape.com listed

Hehe.. well I never believe in PR anyways :P It doesn't matter how many people are linking back..