Can anyone tell me what a PR is?

Nevermind, thank you!

I think it raises the price by how much the domain is valued at.

Originally Posted by boydy96

I think it raises the price by how much the domain is valued at.

Only to the gullible!

The PR of a web link is useful ( read: useful) but what would help more is content relevancy - If you get a site from a site about apples to your site about oranges, I don't think it would make much sense . But yes a high PR link "helps"

That makes sense John. All other things being equal I will value a link from a higher PR site more than a lower PR site. And you're exactly right about the relevancy of the link.

I don't want to imply that PR has no purpose or value at all. It's value can't be determined in isolation though. Not much really can be determined in isolation.

Originally Posted by vangogh

And you're exactly right about the relevancy of the link.

This is a puzzler for me. What is 'relevance' and how do you measure it?

I actually thought that oranges were relevant to apples because they're both fruit. Is it a sliding scale of relevance i.e. big juicy oranges are definitely relevant to oranges, apples less so, cabbages even less so and a spanner definitely not?

That is true gringo. Maybe that's not the best expression to use with relevancy.

I guess the way I would look at it is oranges and apples are releveant by degree as both being fruit. However an orange and a grapefruit would be more relevant to each other since both are citrus fruits. Pretty much like you said.

I'm not sure anyone knows entirely what search engines consider relevant or how well they can measure it. I think a lot of it has to do with the anchor text of your links. For example if I have a backlink to my green widgets page that contains the anchor text "green widgets' the link would be considered very relevant. If the anchor text was "apples and oranges" there's not much relevance.

I think the search engines are also getting better at determining what a page is about in general and so that 'green widgets' link on a page about widgets in general is more relevant than if it were on a page about fruit.

personally "relevance" WRT search engines is another red herring.

relevant is a very very broad brush where products and people are concerned

Tractors are relevant to fencing products (not the foil & epee stuff) though I'm sure there are people out there who have a tractor and fence as a sport in which case both would be relevant to them.
Fencing products are relevant to wellington boots (if you are repairing fences chances are it will be muddy)
Wellington boots are relevant to thick socks,

so along that chain Tractors and Socks can be relevant

Let's see a search engine work that out!!!
Relevancy is really for people NOT SEs

Also DO NOT FORGET that anchor text is also copy on the page and has weight for the page it is on so linking out with on page topic anchor text helps both ends.

Yep. When I think of relevance and really all link building it's more about people than search engines. Like you said Chris a tractor is relevant to fencing products and while a search spider might not get it a person will see the connection.

One link in the right place can be more impotant for who clicks on it than for anything it will ever do to improve search rankings. Obviously people will always be able to spot relevancy better than a search engine.

The sites that have marketed themselves the best are the ones that get traffic from a variety of sources. The ones that will not skip a beat even if an algorithm change takes away all of their traffic from a particular search engine.

Im thinking, No. With the other ranking stats, it obviously has value, but the PR alone is not enough

I definitely think it is worth something. Not that PR is perfected by any means, but it does signify that your site is OUT THERE an dvisible by a lot of people and can be found through search, which is key.

I think PR especially as seen in the toolbar can give you inferences about a site, but only tells you so much. For a related analogy suppose you type anthing as a search in Google and are presented with 10 results like always. What can you really tell about those sites (as far as seo is concerned) while at Google's results page?

You can tell they've done something right for a moment in time to be listed, but you really don't know if the site is any good or will have what you're looking for until you visit it. You also don't know if the site will come up again on the first page for that same result next week or after the next Google algorithm update. Did the page in the results get there through long term seo or was it through some spammy technique that's about to get them banned. You really can't tell just from the search resiult.

I think the situation is similar with PR. Yes it's part of the algorithm so there is some weight placed on it. But no one knows what they're PR really is and without knowing more about a site you can't really tell how it got that PR. Did it get that PR6 from a few links from two PR8 sites owned by the same person. Is it part of a link farm that hasn't been caught yet or did it get the PR by building quality links over a period of years?

There's only so much you can tell from one innacurate number.

yes, PR does add to your sites worth becuase you have the ability to monetiza with that PR. if you have a PR of 4 or better, there a people out there who will pay you for being linked to on your site.

more fool them then

Heres my point of view on the matter.

#1. If any of the people here who said PR will not make your website worth more, were selling 2 similar websites, similar as in content, design, traffic conversion ration and everything else. I think they would be lying if they said they wouldnt charge more for the website with PR as opposed to the website without PR or with less PR. Even if it was 5 dollars, i bet they would charge more.

#2. If any of the people that answered no were buying a website, and there were two basically exact same sites to choose from for the same price, i bet they would choose the website with higher PR. (and yes of course content and everything else being considered...they are basically exact for this discussion, as we all know every tiny little thing can add or subtract worth)

Someone said PR is only important when buying text links. Why wouldnt it then be important when buying a website. If it wasnt important than it wouldnt be important in all phases. And we are talking about a developed website...NOT some domain we just backordered with a PR4, which will drop next update

Heres an example, i build 2 basically identical websites, one website gets a PR5 and the other gets a PR3. Now if i were to sell these websites would i offer them at the same price? Or if i was selling text links on these sites wouldnt i be able to get more money for a PR5?

So my opinion is PR can add value to a website. If people are willing to pay than thats makes a market for PR which makes it more valuable.

I still disagree. I wouldn't put a price on either site for sale or purchase based on PR. There are so many other aspects to a website that to me are what determines it's value. If I were looking to purchase a site for it's content then I wouldn't care at all about PR. All I'd be interested in that case is the quality of the content.

If I were looking to buy the site because I wanted to make money drectly from that site I would be more concerned in the revenue the site had been generating and what revenue I though the site would bring in the future.

In either of the two above examples. The lower PR site could easily be the one I want and thus would have greater value to me.

I'm not saying that PR is worthless. I do think it can provide a very quick measure of links about a site, but as I've stated before in this thread that PR could have been manipulated in such a way that it's not really meaningful. Perhaps the PR was generated temporarily through link farms or other spammy techniques and is about to be banned or the links discounted at the next Google update. The the PR in that case had no value.

When this thready started the question was about whether or not PR alone adds worth or value to a site and I'll maintain that the answer is no. It's not that PR is meaningless it's just that PR in isolation (much like any one thing in isolation) doesn't add worth or value.

It's the sum of everything about a site that gives it worth. Not any one thing, unless it's only that one thing you're concerned about. So if you want to buy a high PR site then obviously the value goes up as the PR goes up. But in general it doesn't make the site worth more except for those people who are interested in having a high PR site.

i agree more important is the anchor text of the backlinks

Anything that can be faked or manipulated by a webmaster should be taken with a grain of salt. PageRank is one of those things.

i believe must change ur site content regularly