This post is intended to be a discussion point and not really the usual blog post you would see here on this site.
I am inviting you to participate with some thoughtful comments on this topic because it seems like people are always arguing about Page Rank and its role in link building, SEO, and attaining top SERPs.
The arguments AGAINST getting/focusing on just PR links:
Page Rank-ed links don’t matter much because they’re:
- harder to get, so less IP diversity potential
- Pr-ed links don’t pass relevancy usually
- PR-ed links pass less link juice than you’d think due to referring sites’ OBLs (outbound links) reducing the PR and juice passed
- PR-ed links are only good for passing down PR to destination urls
The arguments FOR getting/focusing on just Page Rank-ed links:
- The PR-ed urls giving the backlinks to you possess PR for a reason (inherent traffic,backlinks and link juice
- PR-ed urls possess inherent authority since they already got some decent PR assigned to them, whether by external factors such as traffic and inbound links or just PR passed down.funneled form the main domain url (if we’re talking about inner pages with PR,that is)
- Getting PR passed down to your destination url means link juice and authority is passed (but is relevancy passed, the anti-PR crowd wants to know?)
- Getting PR-ed links strengthens the overall trust and authority of your site so getting these types of links is a long-term strategy for attainment of authority, trust and link juice
Read this before you continue: >>> Page Rank Link building Myths
Then read this excerpt from Jim Boykin’s Link Building Blog : >>> If it’s not a Pagerank 4 or higher, it’s worthless:
Pagerank updates about every 3-6 months…and is based on a score calculated 3-6 months prior to the updating day….saying that Pagerank is Stale is an understatement….also saying that pagerank effects rankings is a lie.
One of my link team Ninjas was showing me an email they got back from someone stating something to the effect of:
“I can tell that you don’t know about SEO, so let me give you some lessons. The page you’re requesting an ad on doesn’t have Pagerank yet, so there’s no value. I can put your ad on our links page that is a Pagerank 4 since there’s much more value there.”
our response was something like:
“I’m not sure what pagerank is, but the page I requested is really the one we’d really like the ad on. We think visitors to that page will find this ad relevant and will click through to this advertisor…. (and then we proceeded to get this ad for a “Ninja steal”).
Pagerank 0… SO WHAT I say! Our ninjas don’t look at Pagerank….we’re not puppets on Google’s Pagerank Strings.
This particular page was about 2 months old….it wasn’t showing fairy dust (pagerank) yet….but it had a cache from the day prior and it had around 50 backlinks from other sites to that exact page. It was a quality page, it was relevant to our client, and our ad should get some clicks as well…. the fact that it was a pagerank 0 doesn’t mean squat to me.
MY soliloquy:
When you see advertisements and sales letters touting the latest and greatest article syndication via blog network spiel, here are some things to consider:
A NETWORK of Pr2-5 sites doesn’t mean you’re getting PR 2-5 links. It means your getting your content syndicated on decent Page Ranked sites. If/when the content syndicated on another’s site does get indexed, it’ll take a bit of work for you to get IT to achieve page rank of its own.
So why is Page Rank important for SEO + link building?
Because Page Rank is an indicator of trust…trust by the search engines of the site(s) in question.
Getting backlinks from trusted sites adds quality to your site
Backlinks from trusted sources begets trust attribution to the destination sites (your sites)
But what about link juice and DoFollow attributes?
- Do you want to have your content on a site url stuffed with OBLs (outbound links)
- Do you want your content to be placed on a site whose only REAL PR is in their main URL, and none of that PR “bled” down to the inner posts and pages of that site?
There’s an (oversimplified) algorithm/formula for how PageRank and link juice is bled from/passed down to a site/site url. PR X *.85/# of obls.
For every outbound link on a page, the potential “PR pass” ( amount of Page Rank passed from main domain to that url) is dampened by .85 immediately even without any other OBLs, but if there are OBLs then the juice is divided by the number of OBLs.
So if you have a PR 3 URL that you’re getting a backlink from and there’s
- 5 banner ads,
- and 1 powered by wordpress OBL,
- plus 1 “designed by wordpress theme creator OBL,
- and 4 blog roll OBLs,
then that site/url is giving out 11 outbound links which means the PR and link juice of that URL is lessened…
The PR 3 url with 11 OBLS (5 +1+1+4) means
PR3 X .85/11 = 0.2318181818181818 so let’s round this up to .25 for easy math reasons.
In this scenario, this PR3 link in giving out .25 PR points and you’d need 4 of these to get one PR point passed down to your destination url (4 X.25)
Yippee! So you got 4 of these PR links and will get a PR1 for your destination URL.
Which begs the next few questions:
- Do this eventual PR attainment lead to top rankings or just more overall link juice or whatever… for your site and that particular URL?
- Do you want to focus on getting PR-ed links like this, which are rarely to be had,or do you want to get a ton of PR 0 backlinks with multiple IP diversity and possibly some more relevancy?
I am opening this post up for discussion here, I’m feeling a bit verklempt so talk amongst yourselves! 
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Depends on what you’re trying to do. If you’re looking to funnel some link juice into one of your orbital sites which, in turn, have anchored leading leading to your money sites the obvious answer is PR. I use this method in high competition areas where I need to build link strength to my outter sites.
If you’re in low competition niches I’d go for a mix but lean more towards anchored backlinks from low PR sites and get them in bulk. I’d then top up with a few links to the orbital sites with unanchored text.
Hey Richard, thanks for chiming in. So are you saying that PR links are good for link juice boosting more so than relevancy boosting (if the sites are totally relevant/related?
BTW, I know the answers here, just trying to letting others have their say
If everything is equal and I can get a PR4 link or a PR6 link, I’ll take the PR6. But in the real world everything equal on 2 sites almost never exists. So I’ll take the most targeted to what I am offering site. Considering if links will drive traffic directly from where placed is an important part of the picture.
.-= Warner Carter´s last blog ..What is SEO? =-.
Good added points Warner. The value of a link is measured in myriad ways, direct traffic, link juice, increased relevancy etc….
I think that any discussion on Google PageRank is impossible without the link to an awesome and very detailed guide by Danny Sullivan: http://searchengineland.com/what-is-google-pagerank-a-guide-for-searchers-webmasters-11068
.-= Ann Smarty´s last blog ..Building a Helpful Website =-.
PR can be a good indicator of amount of links/PR juice page has but… It’s dead easy to get high PR link (5+) from some authority .edu blog and pass it to your page. Will it then give that page more power? I don’t think so.
Why get $1 a month if you can hit $50 or more, from idiots willing to pay for PR.
What PR is then? Old crap that was Google’s answer on similar ‘website scoring’ ides from competitors. Now they keeping that to make our lives more complicated.
PR has nothing to do with page relevancy, content quality or linking power for specific keyword. Just compare top 20 spots for some high volume keyword. Are they in PR order? No. Why? Because PR doesn’t mean anything else that it actually is: old link scoring crap which Google is using for gathering TRAFFIC STATS.
When you request PR – Google gets info someone has visited page X, if you think that is not an important info for them – you are wrong
And last thing… Who is shouting the loudest? People selling links on their PR websites
PR and link building are 2 separate things. If you want to sell links – you are building PR, if you want rankings – you will do link building.
.-= Google´s last blog ..Darmowe linki – Press Release / Media Release =-.
“o. Why? Because PR doesn’t mean anything else that it actually is: old link scoring crap which Google is using for gathering TRAFFIC STATS.”
Completely disagree. Of course URls in a SERP aren’t in PR order, because PR isn’t the only consideration. Relevancy, authority, page load speed, and many other factors are also involved.
However, if you took two pages that scored exactly the same in all other factors, and one was a a PR5 and one was a PR2, I guarantee you that the one with the PR5 would rank higher.
Yes, the PR algorithm is old. And yes, we don’t know all of the factors that are involved in determining it. And yes, PR is not the only factor in determining SERPS. But it is still the single biggest off page factor in determining your SERP position. PR is *still* how Google quantifies the quality and quantity of your backlinks. Then it uses that PR number in a complex algorythem to determine your SERP position.
Probably the most important thing in this article is the emphasis on the number of outbound link determining how much link juice is passed. This is the part that almost everyone overlooks.
Sure, the chances are that a pr6 backlink is going to pass more value than a pr2. But if the pr6 page hass 100 outbound links on it, and the PR2 only has 1, then the pr2 actually passes more linkjuice.
Thanks for stopping by and pointing out the important aspects of this post.
The #1 most desirable and over-riding factor should be link juice that begets increased relevancy for a term, but most links give one or the other but not both
@Daniel, yes. But as Google and selectsplat have said, simply using PR a rule isn’t the most effective way of judging how much weight the inbound links will carry. Another idea that’s been floating around for a while is the actual strength of a link is more important. For anyone that doesn’t understand, this is a calculation of the aggregated weight of all the links to your site. An easier way to describe this: think of a traffic jam consisting of 50 go karts. The rear go gart doesn’t stop in time and shunts the kart in front of him. Effect? Not much as go karts are very light. Now take that same traffic jam and ram 3 20 tonne juggernauts into it from slightly different angles. Result? Lots of movement. Hopefully you get the picture.
.-= Richard´s last blog ..Final Nail for Vista: Windows 7 Sells 90 Million Licenses =-.
“Now take that same traffic jam and ram 3 20 tonne juggernauts into it from slightly different angles. Result? Lots of movement. Hopefully you get the picture.”
Richard, that’s what I meant by this >>>
The #1 most desirable and over-riding factor should be link juice that begets increased relevancy for a term, but most links give one or the other but not both
I know. I was just putting it into a format that easy to understand
Well put then…. analogies seem to work best for simplifying this SEO stuff because people tend to needlessly complicate what this is all about
I thought they are Page Rank is not that important anymore. Someone on Google said that, but I heard some money program still using Page Rank and Alexa Rank as a requirement. IMO success with link building is better than just a Page Rank.
.-= Latief@AnotherBlogger´s last blog ..How To Removing CommentLuv Error Message =-.
IMO success with link building is better than just a Page Rank.
EXACTLY! But what came first the chicken (Page Rank) or the egg (Link juice that makes your serps rise)?
Well, can you have both? PR-ed links and “Link juice that makes your serps rise”? If the answer is yes, then do it. You’ll have to work harder in order to get those links, but you’ll cover your bases.
If it’s no, then you should evaluate wich one will give you more convertions. Tons of links (IP diversity) or some links from trusted websites?
We must have in mind that low PR doesn’t mean bad link so IP diversity could be the way to go.
Gabriel, high PR urls with no OBLs are rare find, extremely rare, and the only ones I have found were reserved for link renting.
But yeah, if you can find ranking boosting high PR links go for it of course.
The easiest path is getting IP diversity from tons of low PR urls
KeywordLuv is a Wordpress plugin.I agree Keyword Luv is amazing for both sides. Commenters get a nice back link with their keywords while the blog owner gets more relevant comments.KeywordLuv helps you reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their site.
for getting quality one way links , i have found seolinkvine to be the best option. It definately gets me one way backlinks in no time at all.
.-= effective link building´s last blog ..Hello world! =-.
well, if you want to have lots of backlinks, you better have great content`-;
Uhhmmm, NO!
How’s that working for ya?
I have been looking for blogs without considering the page rank, for link building. Seems I am on the right track.
Yes, backlinks from a site with good page rank helps, but that is not all. Quality is what matters more and backlinks from relevant and quality sites is much better than backlinks from a good page ranked site which is irrelevant.
For all those saying high PR backlinks don’t work if not relevant or whatever, have you actually tested this? Because I have and the results are obvious – High PR backlinks rock!
High PR backlinks aren’t always needed, but sometimes they’re the only thing that can catapult you over your competition, so we agree on that. some of the gist of this article/post was to emphasize that a high PR URL can be outranked, given time and enough focus of effort.
Thanks for the comment Louisa,
Dan