Does PR Really Count?
I myself being a learner didn’t ever go to an in-depth analysis of SEO tools and techniques, but the thing that I’ve spent most of the time researching about is PR. It was a time when I didn’t know about it and know I know quite enough but still not sure whether I’m right. I, however, will mention the only things I found reading most of the SEO articles and discussing with some SEO gurus as well.
PR (even the experts don’t know, the exact basis on which Google construct this rank thing) according to the analysis of most of the SEO experts is the essence of ‘quality links’ a site has. This quality in fact has more than one dimension, i.e. PR of the site where link has been placed, the quality content there, relevancy of the two sites linking with each other etc. This means if you’re having a backlink at PR +6 site that link will have more value than 100 links at PR2 site or so. Similarly if your link is placed with too many other links and no content is there on that page, the link will probably have no value. And if your site is selling exercising equipment and your link is found a high PR SEO blog, that might be suspicious for SEs and you wont get any credit for that link.
After this short brainstorming, the question that arises in the mind is, is considering only high PR links while link building a wise act? I don’t think so it is, and the justification is what I analyzed above. PR counts but not alone!
September 15th, 2007 at 10:21 am
A lot of experienced webmasters will agree with your statement “PR counts but not alone!”. It’s true that PR is just one of the factors that we consider when link building.
I myself consider the traffic that the site gets and how long it has been around. I believe that links are not only for higher SE rankings but also for exposure and traffic.
Great post, keep up the good work!
September 15th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
If you talk about PR alone you can’t discount the low PR sites that are linking to you. Even an inbound PR0 link counts in your web site’s PR. Take http://www.adobe.com as an example. The current PR of Adobe is 10/10 and is more powerful than google itself. Do you think Adobe got the PR10 just because too many PR6+ sites are linking to it? Off course NOT! You can reach PR10 with billions of PR0 inbound links. Adobe.com got PR10 because billions of “IRRELEVANT” sites are linking to Acrobat reader page. I agree that for irrelevant websites you do not get any google love in terms of ranking in search results but you do get the PR in most of the cases.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
@jug
Thanks for the comments
@Zeb
Actually all this PR thing is still a mystery for me, and gets more complex on exploring.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:19 am
I have posted a reply to your comment in my blog. Thank you for the comment
March 5th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Its really a very informative post, i really enjoyed it. The topic is brilliant as well
The essence of the whole post lies in just one sentence ‘PR counts but not Alone!’
Great work, keep posting.