Parusa I'll agree with that. My main point is that Google has decreased the weight of PR in the algorithm and that it's not the best approach to see things solely in terms of PR. I think too many people see increasing PR as their seo goal and I want to get people to understand it's not the best way to pursue things.

roy I wouldn't look at PR in isolation. In your example of two relevant arcade sites why would you have to choose between them. If they both make sense to have a link on them wouldn't you want to buy a link from both.

Originally Posted by vangogh

It's still used in the algorithm and it's still used in determining how often and how deep a site gets crawled, but it's nowhere near as important as it once was. It's bif marketing for Google though. PR is associated with Google alone and the more we all talk about PR the more we all talk about Google.

I might use it to make a quick snap judgment about a page or site, but I don't worry what the PR of any of my pages is and I don't base most SEO decisions on the PR of a page or site. People who see SEO in terms of PageRank and work to specifically increase Page Rank are really going about SEO the wrong way. They may increase PR, but that doesn't mean they will have a more successful site.

I agree with the points you've made, as I use it for a snap judgement many times also, which is why I said it was a Google joke at first, that back-fired by using the buzz-word.

Maybe one of these days, many people will finally grasp the concept and move on to bigger and better things.

Unfortunately as people start to figure it out now a new group will come in worshiping PR. And then of course if Google gives it 1% more weight in the algorithm everyone will go gaga about it all over again.

First of all, the Page Rank we are talking about is the Toolbar PR and not the real PR. Toolbar PR represents the real PR on a scale of 0-10, but those are just log values with a base of 10.

Real PR may ranhe from 0.10 to billions. Climbing up the PR ladder is tough because the difference of real PR becomes larger and larger.

For example:

Toolbar PageRank / Real Page Rank

(log base 10)

0 0 - 10

1 10 - 1000

2 1000 - 10000

4 and so on....

So it's tough to move from 5-6 and tougher from 6-7 and so on.

But IMO, let us not concentrate on the PR of the site. There are many things that are far more important that the PR of a page, such as trust rank. If I were to judge a page, then instead of worrying about it's PR, I would check the page's trust rank and the content of the page.

From what I hear, you should focus less on your PR (whether it's Google's Toolbar PR or it's internal PR), and focus more on reaching out to your main target audience/demographic. That's what will determine the success of your site more than anything else

Of course the figures in Normans post are NOT to be taken as the literal values for PR, it is simply an opinion.

In the original papers by Page and Brin show the total value of PR for distribution as unity (1)

from http://dbpubs.stanford.edu:8090/pub/...me=1998-8.text
The PageRank of a page A is given as follows:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Note that the PageRanks form a probability distribution over web pages, so the sum of all web pages' PageRanks will be one.

bolding mine BTW

The main issues (IMO) with using the Toolbar derived value for even "snap" judgements is the fact that is is only updated every 3 months or so and is an integer value, so any displayed value does not give any real indication how far apart any two displayed values are.

Originally Posted by sergey&co

Note that the PageRanks form a probability distribution over web pages, so the sum of all web pages' PageRanks will be one.

This bit always puzzles me. If each page has PR >= (1-d), how can the sum of all PRs be less than 1?

If you have x pages indexed, then the total PR >= x(1-d). If you have enough pages in the index (x is huge), then x(1-d) will be greater than 1. Unless d really isn't a constant and changes according to how many pages are indexed.

It doesn't really matter, it's just something I haven't got my head around yet.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Of course the figures in Normans post are NOT to be taken as the literal values for PR, it is simply an opinion.

In the original papers by Page and Brin show the total value of PR for distribution as unity (1)
bolding mine BTW

The main issues (IMO) with using the Toolbar derived value for even "snap" judgements is the fact that is is only updated every 3 months or so and is an integer value, so any displayed value does not give any real indication how far apart any two displayed values are.

Nice formulae, I am looking for that formula before, and it might help other SEOs understand how PR is done.

I also found another site for that formula.

Originally Posted by parusa619

PR can be important at times, it is used for trading services like link exchange and selling sites.

Lets get into the question, PR6 has more quality links than PR5. In short, 1 PR can give more benefit to the site.

I beg to differ mate. To your first comment. PR is not important for ranking or trading. If you got rankings/traffic you do not need to sell links as you should be able to convert some of it into money. If you don't have traffic not many people will want a link from your site. Of course there are always the PR chasers. But when I goto sell a site I can sell it for its REAL value because of its traffic and money coming in not because of PR. I don't deal with nitwits I deal with investors. BTW I buy links based on their traffic not PR. Pr doesn't sent me people

And there are thousands of PR2/3 sites that have way more quality links than PR5 or 6 sites. An extra PR does not mean more quality just quantity.
I have some sites with low PRs that rank higher than thousands of PR6/7 and maybe an 8 or two.
Some of these sites I have never done linkbuilding on which means most of my inbound links are generally very very high quality and so have a very positive effect on my rankings yet a very low effect on my PR. My pr rises very slow but my rankings go up much faster. I like this method.

Guys, u need to stop paying attention to pagerank 100%. What matters most is the quality of the backlinks that you get, not the quality of the pagerank.
I can prove it to you, pm me and iw ill show u a pr zero site that my seo got to the number 1 position in google in a Medium competitive keyword in 3 months. I used to feel the same way until i saw it myself. Pagerank is almost zilch in importance to google. Visio i agre with your post 100%

Back link is the only factor that affects the page rank. More the back links more will be the PR. And more the PR, more will be visitors because people are seeking for the sites having good pr.

Originally Posted by tommy123

Guys, u need to stop paying attention to pagerank 100%. What matters most is the quality of the backlinks that you get, not the quality of the pagerank.
I can prove it to you, pm me and iw ill show u a pr zero site that my seo got to the number 1 position in google in a Medium competitive keyword in 3 months. I used to feel the same way until i saw it myself. Pagerank is almost zilch in importance to google. Visio i agre with your post 100%

I'd rather concentrate on Backlinks, traffic, and sales. Good site content, good quality of design, and a very clean website.

Originally Posted by tommy123

Guys, u need to stop paying attention to pagerank 100%. What matters most is the quality of the backlinks that you get, not the quality of the pagerank.
I can prove it to you, pm me and iw ill show u a pr zero site that my seo got to the number 1 position in google in a Medium competitive keyword in 3 months. I used to feel the same way until i saw it myself. Pagerank is almost zilch in importance to google. Visio i agre with your post 100%

Case in point. Mose webmasters who believe this are like you. They didn't know. I was like this once and actually did think PR effected rankings. I wasn't like some who thought it was the ultimate hero but had a little faith in it. I soon realized it was useless after ranking PR1/2 sites for high competition phrases. How can it be a factor when it is the opposite of how google ranks?
BTW thanks for the agreement.

Originally Posted by hiredesigner

Back link is the only factor that affects the page rank. More the back links more will be the PR. And more the PR, more will be visitors because people are seeking for the sites having good pr.

Interesting theory. I will have to ask my visitors if they liked my PR.
My visitors mostly come from Google and want my services, information or products. They could care less if I have PR or not.

If you took a poll most people who use the web would have no idea what PageRank is or how to find out what the PR of a site is. To most people PR stands for public relations.

tommy, no reason for anyone to PM you. If you want to share post a link to the site and let us know some of the phrases where the site ranks #1.

artist - you have ONLY $20 - one PR5, one PR6
PR5 - $15 / 3 months
PR6 - $20 / 3 month

which one would you buy?

Well my honest answer is if you only have $20 I wouldn't be spending it buying links. There are probably better ways to invest it other than a single link.

I really think you need to know more about the two sites than the PR to make that decision. There are so many variables in what might be the better link.

I'm going to assume that in your question everything else is supposed to be equal, which is really impossible, but I'll accept that for a theoretical question. In that case I'd probably go with the PR6 link. My reasoning though is $5 isn't really much of risk if I'm wrong.

Then again I could go for the PR5 link and take the other $5 and buy some lunch.

when you said everything is equal - i don't believe or make theories, i made an example to see if you would fall for your own trap. I would say PR6 for the very simple reason: it got a better PR. if you say that a PR has no influence or difference, than why would one buy a 'HIGH' PR link. For example: to get indexed in google, Yet you say that buying a PR0 link would do the same? i will bet you $100 that it wouldn't. therefor there is a Difference between the two. Also, do you agree that PR shows how and what Google thinks about your site - calculated by many factors, wouldn't you agree that google made the PR rating for a reason? which is to show one which is better, and which sucks. simply saying: i would buy pr6 link because google think its better than the pr5 - than you should think the same as the big G, why? becasue if you woudnt how do you expect to be ranked? i have some very interesting points here for you, and some other more that i could think of.