Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Myself, I'll link to any site that's of a good quality and related subject matter.
Of course, you're not discriminating against PR 4 or under sites, either right? So go out and harvest all those clean relevant backlinks available on PR 4 and under websites that the other so-called SEOs are leaving behind. I love mom and pop websites, for a variety of reasons that toolbar lovers have trouble understanding.
I'm not sure if you're responding to me or the original poster, but I'll say that I only discriminate based on quality and relevance to my site.
That being said, I won't claim to be completely free of PR obsession when it comes to seeking out a link for my own sites. I will put forth more effort to acquire a backlink from a PR7 or higher site. As I said, it's very difficult to completely disregard that cursed little green bar.
The PR toolbar is way out of date (111 days and counting for today), and in 4 months, a PR1 site can gather alot of links.
Maybe you can send the wayward webmaster several links from webmasterworld, showing how foolish he is by judging the quality of a site by PR. As their has been several threads on PR tunnel vision.
I think it would be best if Google decides to get rid of that silly green bar altogher. The web would be a much better place, without a Google PR toolbar.
The web would be a much better place, without a Google PR toolbar.
Yes, absolutely!
If you start a brand new website by entering it into directories and a press release or something, you can get that PR built up to about a 4 very quickly. I don't go to a site that's a PR6 or 7 and expect them to link to one of mine for no reason, because it's not a fair exchange. Yes, if it was a content site, a charity site, a photo site, or something that would provide a really nice addition to mine, I'd link without considering the PR. But I'm not going to link to every real estate agent on my PR5 real estate site just because they ask. You have to balance your time out somehow.
Main point, though...stop spinning your wheels trying to get a high ranking business site to "give" you a link. Instead, create a blog. Do a good press release and pay to have links in it. Write a good article and have ONE professional link in it..and give it out to other sites that are similar. These days recip linking should be used as icing on the cake, and not the cake itself. If you can't write, then hire someone, or ask a friend to write something for you.
There are ways, and it's not that hard.
Just my 2 cents. I've been doing this a long time.
Don't mean to be blunt...
Jan
I don't go to a site that's a PR6 or 7 and expect them to link to one of mine for no reason, because it's not a fair exchange.
I disagree. Lots of spammy crap sites out there with pr6-7. A fair link exchange has nothing to do with pr.
PR is not an indicator of quality by any means. Rank is one indicator. So would be domain reg length, the number of links leaving the page and numerous other factors including relevance to your nich topic.
But you would know this already as you've been in the 'game' for awhile :P
That being said, I don't do reciprocal linking at all anymore except once in a very great while. I don't have to. I get more juice out of a press release and a blog and the partners I've made than I could get out of two or three hundred interior recip links.
I started learning SEO in December of 2002. That's a long time, to me.
I had last week sent off about 50 hand typed (not pasted) emails to sites that I was interested in linking with, subject relevant sites that have PR5 or above.
Well as predicted I had zero responses and this leaves me to wonder how/where do I find link exchanges with good sites without spending a TON of time. I will happily spend a ton of time if I get a response but so far nothing really.
I have a total of 15 links on my site and have spend a ridiculous amount of time attaining them.
HELP!
I get more juice out of a press release and a blog and the partners I've made than I could get out of two or three hundred interior recip links.
Forgive my ignorance but are you saying that it's important to have a blog associated with a site? If so, why?
I had last week sent off about 50 hand typed (not pasted) emails to sites that I was interested in linking with, subject relevant sites that have PR5 or above.
As my dad used to say when I was a kid:
No... no... no...
;)
I have a PR4 ranking on my site and I have "what I think" great content. Daily updated original articles (i have written).
I had last week sent off about 50 hand typed (not pasted) emails to sites that I was interested in linking with, subject relevant sites that have PR5 or above.
Now why wouldn't you pick out 50 sites that were a PR4 or below to ask for a link with? Why would you specifically pick sites that were ranked higher than you, and then complain because they don't respond?
This doesn't make any sense to me at all. You all want to "marry up" but we get criticized because we don't want to "marry down". Amazing.
I have plenty of PR4 sites myself. I wouldn't ask a stranger with a PR5 to link with me, though. Just wouldn't.
Yes, to the other person, a blog on a site will help a good bit if you fill it with good relevant content and news. Probably not if you just put pictures of your cat on it and describe the movie you went to see the night before...
Jan
[edited by: martinibuster at 2:56 am (utc) on Feb. 9, 2006]
[edit reason] Fixed style code. [/edit]
The reason seems to center around low page impressions, and low visitor numbers. Sure... if a site hasn't been in existence for long, you expect those numbers. But what about sites that have been around for a while, and continue to rank PR1-PR3? Should we assume the webmaster isn't doing any SEO? Is the site not popular? Has the site not been added to directories? Do spiders not crawl the site? etc., etc.
Just because it has content relevant to yours, doesn't necessarily mean you should exchange links, or provide one-way links.
Check this: If you have 10 websites (PR1 - PR10), all with equally good, relevant content and you could only choose 5 to link to, ... which 5 do you think most webmasters would choose?
(PR1-PR5) or (PR6-PR10)?
In this hypothetical scenario, if choosing the latter group (PR6-PR10) didn't provide any benefits, then there would be no reason for Google, Alexa, etc., to rank websites.
Meaning, your website wouldn't lose or gain anything by linking to low-PR sites, or high-PR sites, when all other factors are equal.
The reason seems to center around low page impressions, and low visitor numbers
No, the reason is simply that it doesn't have enough links pointing to it yet to gain more PR. (Also, sometimes the toolbar is simply behind the times and the page has higher PR than the TB shows.)
Page Rank is based on the links that point to your site. Nothing else.
Page impressions and visitor numbers have little correlation with PR.
No, the reason is simply that it doesn't have enough links pointing to it yet to gain more PR. (Also, sometimes the toolbar is simply behind the times and the page has higher PR than the TB shows.)
Okay...then my next question would be: If the toolbar is sometimes inaccurate, how would any page-rank ever be verified?
Page Rank is based on the links that point to your site. Nothing else.
Are we talking about the total number of links pointing, or the total number of relevant links pointing? (Not being a smart-@@@...I really wish to know! :)
I checked out one set of stats: (Martini will snip this if I'm not allowed to post it!)
Cars.com = PR8
Google Links - 80,800
MSN Links - 418,657
Yahoo Links - 3,340,000
Intel.com = PR9
Google Links - 31,700
MSN Links - 512,874
Yahoo Links - 704,000
Cars.com has a lower PR, but more links to it. Now you tell me that the toolbar is inaccurate at times!
What gives? LOL
For instance a page with a PR 6 and 100 links is not necessarily better than a page that is a PR 3 and 10 links.
There are probably other factors as well that we are not aware of. But this certainly answers the two examples you gave.
For instance a page with a PR 6 and 100 links is not necessarily better than a page that is a PR 3 and 10 links.
Sounds good in theory, but I saw where someone tried to do a breakdown on that, and calculated that the variable between the PR numbers was so huge that it wasn't over-ridden by the number of links unless it was just some outrageous amount.
So for the most part, a PR5 with 100 links on the homepage is still better than a PR4 with 10 links.
Why? Because it takes so much juice (and so many incoming links) to climb from a 4 to a 5 to start with.
Then again, it would also depend whether it was a high PR4 or a low PR5, too. I love the game...:-)
Because it takes so much juice (and so many incoming links) to climb from a 4 to a 5 to start with.
Nah. I can turn any site into a PR 5 with a single link. It doesn't take a lot of juice. It's so easy that it lays bare the truth that the Toolbar Meter has very little, if any, meaningful relevance as an SEO tool.
If Google, the most efficient and most popular search engine in the world, classifies a website as PR1, then that number was derived for a reason.
1: The toolbar PR does not indicate the true PR of a site. The real PR is only known at the GooglePlex. A PR 1 on the toolbar says little to nothing about it's real PageRank (keep reading for a fuller explanation)
2: Often the PR1 simply means that the site is new, the toolbar PR is wrong, or that the webmaster is not an SEO and the website is not in any SEO neighborhoods (a good thing).
The reason seems to center around low page impressions, and low visitor numbers.
That statement is incorrect. Page impressions have nothing to do with the toolbar PR. I have a few PR 5 sites that receive about 20 visitors per day.
But what about sites that have been around for a while, and continue to rank PR1-PR3? Should we assume the webmaster isn't doing any SEO?
That would be a reasonable assumption. The best links are links outside of SEO neighborhoods. Why do you think .edu sites may be so valuable?
Is the site not popular?
If you are talking about traffic, PR is not an indicator of traffic, either.
Has the site not been added to directories?
Do spiders not crawl the site? etc., etc.
Just because it has content relevant to yours, doesn't necessarily mean you should exchange links, or provide one-way links.
You don't explain why. Please explain, please justify your statement.
Check this: If you have 10 websites (PR1 - PR10), all with equally good, relevant content and you could only choose 5 to link to, ... which 5 do you think most webmasters would choose?(PR1-PR5) or (PR6-PR10)?
The top albums of 1991 as noted by Billboard are To the Extreme by Vanilla Ice, Maria Carey, REM Out of Time, a Michael Bolton Album, Spellbound by Paula Abdul, rounded out by NWA (ok, decent choice),Van Halen, Natalie Cole, Garth Brooks... and well, you get the picture. Nirvana's Nevermind isn't anywhere in there. Nevermind was perhaps the most important album of the year, if not the decade, but it wasn't reflected by what everyone was buying. It didn't even win the Grammy for best alternative album (that went to REMs Out of Time album that contained a whopping two or three decent songs on it).
Surely you are aware that what the herd chooses is frequently the wrong choice?
Your hypothetical situation is flawed because all things are never equal. The site with the great content AND PR 5 may have a PR 5 powered by a link matchmaking service that in a month might get targeted and blown out of the index. Your average webmaster will be falling off the edge of the cliff with the rest of the herd in your scenario.
What matters, what really matters, is the quality of the backlinks, and how many of them are back there. The toolbar PR does not reflect those factors.
In this hypothetical scenario, if choosing the latter group (PR6-PR10) didn't provide any benefits, then there would be no reason for Google, Alexa, etc., to rank websites.
The Google engineers are on record stating that there are too many factors governing PageRank to be condensed into ten pixels. What that means is that the GTB is a poor measure of quality or even of real PageRank. The best statement of that fact (not conjecture, fact) was by a Google engineer interviewed by Mike Grehan around December 2003.
Are we talking about the total number of links pointing, or the total number of relevant links pointing
As others have said, it's not just the raw number of links pointing to a page that determines its PR, it's a combination of the quantity and quality of those links. Some links pack more PR punch than others because of how the math shakes out.
Always remember: Page Rank is only one factor among many in what it takes to rank well in searches that are important to you. Someone who becomes too much of a PR junkie can mess up other things that matter.
Suppose you were a wedding cake decorator based in Oregon. Suppose that in the course of chasing PR you traded links with nothing but plumbing supply stores in the UK. Your PR might increase, but your links (inbound and outbound, taken as a whole) would send a very confused message to the search engines. That would make it harder to rank well for "wedding cakes in Oregon", not easier. Few real life situations would be that extreme, but I hope it gives you the idea.
On the other hand, if you traded links with other cake decorators, or with other wedding suppliers such as jewellers or caterers, the search engines would spot "weddings" and "cakes" as a theme in your link patterns. That will support you in the rankings. Cultivating links that strengthen the message "This site is about wedding cakes" can be just as productive as chasing PR.
That's why some of us keep harping that it's important to cultivate links based on quality and relevance. "Little" links that are a good match for your site's topic can help you far more than their PR might suggest. They're often a lot easier to get, too, both one-ways and reciprocals.
(mine)
Because it takes so much juice (and so many incoming links) to climb from a 4 to a 5 to start with.
(martini-busters)
Nah. I can turn any site into a PR 5 with a single link. It doesn't take a lot of juice. It's so easy that it lays bare the truth that the Toolbar Meter has very little, if any, meaningful relevance as an SEO tool.
The only way you can turn a Pr4 into a Pr5, and not overnight... You've either got to get it one or two super PR links (like a PR8 or 9) or you've got to get about 35-50 Pr4's and Pr5's...or maybe 6 Pr6's, or 4 7's...ad nauseum. Most people I know don't have access to a link from anything higher than a 6, anyway. And the very fact that one link from a PR9 site would make you a 5 or a 6 shows that the power is in the number. It grows exponentially with each "unit". I would sell my cat to be number 99 link on a PR8 site. For a nine I would change my name to Faust. Google says more than 100 links is the stopping point, so I stopped at number 99.
I won't go into getting 1000 others, because those are the kind that probably won't last long anyway. I personally think all the large numbers of recip links will soon be discounted to nothing. The PR8 or 9 links ARE "juice". The others are food....steaks, chicken, McDonalds cheeseburgers, down to Lance crackers.
Since I am a webmaster, I have about 20 sites that I manage, and since I'm a nice person, I also have about 20 friends in the same field that have PR5 sites, and we support each other. So our new sites generally open as 4's, and with blogs, articles and press releases, we usually get them to 5's very quickly.
But when I didn't have these avenues, a PR5 was a hard thing to get, and even if you are a moderator, I disagree with your statement/opinion. There is a huge difference between a 4 and a 5, and being the 50th link on a PR5 page is still better than being the 5th one on a PR4. Again, this may be tempered by whether they are high or low in the margins. A PR4.9 is closer to a PR5 than a PR4.1. And that's one thing the toolbar doesn't tell you. Add to that that the tool bar reflects only the ranking the last time it was updated, which is approximately every 3 months, in a normal case. There are exceptions to that, too.
Of course this is all just opinion. Unless you're Matt Cutts' best friend, you don't know for sure.
And personally, I don't think anyone should make statements like they are facts unless someone of Matt's caliber says it's so. You have your opinion and I have mine. We may both do a good job even if we have different ideas on how to do it.
You have your opinion and I have mine.
I'm not expressing an opinion, I'm relating my experience. I can turn any website into a PR 5 within the next PR update with just one link. It's so easy it makes trusting the accuracy of the toolbar a joke.
People, have you ever wondered why Google limits the SEO information you can get from their search engine, like their backlink search? Google doesn't want you using their tools against their own algo. Do you REALLY think their toolbar is any different?
The toolbar is at best something for amusement or curiosity, at worst it's a trojan horse (in the sense that it's a false gift that outs you as trying to manipulate the algo).
Be smart, use genuine signals of quality to judge your potential link partners.
And don't take my word for it, read what their search engineers say about the accuracy of the toolbar. This should not be news to you, this interview came out over two years ago over on Mike Grehan's website [e-marketing-news.co.uk].
Daniel: (Dulitz, of Google- mb):
So, the second part of the question was, are people focusing too much on PageRank. I guess that depends on what they're after really...But for search engine marketing, search engine optimisation purposes, yeah, I'd say that there's too much emphasis placed on what that PageRank number actually is. Our job as a search engine is to return the best results that we can. And we're not naive enough to think that we can condense every indicator about a page into a number from one to ten. We certainly can't do that.
So, if people are trying to look at what we're doing and their idea is based on that single number from one to ten...they're not going to be effective in figuring out what we're doing at all.
That interview is one of the biggest gifts to the webmaster community but people still insist on ignoring the truths inherent in it. It doesn't get more authoritative than this: It's a Google engineer saying it.
...we're not naive enough to think that we can condense every indicator about a page into a number from one to ten. We certainly can't do that.So, if people are trying to look at what we're doing and their idea is based on that single number from one to ten... they're not going to be effective in figuring out what we're doing at all.
Take a day off from work and read their papers and patent applications. There is no way, ZERO, that you can take what they are doing and represent it as a meaningful number between one through ten.
I have read, probably 3 to 5 hours a day for 4 years, everything just about that has been written, conjured, speculated and expounded on about Google and Yahoo algorithims. I've forgotten more than most people have read, because for several years it was all I had to do. I've talked in person to Matt and asked him every question that I could think of at the time...which wasn't many, admittedly.
If you're lucky enough to have someone who'll link you to a site like Ebay or Amazon, then I'm sure you can do that. Or you can try buying a PR8 link..which would have worked six months ago, might work now, but probably won't in 6 more months...says Matt.
I am not that lucky and have never bought a link other than in a directory. But my tools work.
Nah. I can turn any site into a PR 5 with a single link. It doesn't take a lot of juice. It's so easy that it lays bare the truth that the Toolbar Meter has very little, if any, meaningful relevance as an SEO tool.
Yeah, but what is this, "single link" that you're referring to? If you can place a single link and increase another sites' PR from PR2 to PR5, your single link has some type of juice. Would this also mean that your single link is probably a high-ranking site and not a PR0 site?
That statement is incorrect. Page impressions have nothing to do with the toolbar PR. I have a few PR 5 sites that receive about 20 visitors per day.
Okay, but your PR5 site wasn't designed and stood up yesterday, correct? It's PR5 because it's been in existence for a while and you've probably done some type of SEO on it in the past. If your website started at PR0 and you only received 20 visitors per day for months, will your PR0 increase to PR5 (along with the other factors that increase pagerank)? Hmmmm...
Just because it has content relevant to yours, doesn't necessarily mean you should exchange links, or provide one-way links.You don't explain why. Please explain, please justify your statement.
I know of many sites with content relevant to my magazine, but those sites also house content that's irrelevant. Let's say 65% of their content is parallel in nature to my content. But, the other 35% is not. Let's further state that the reason this site is popular, is because of its 35% content (that's good for them, but irrelevant to me). How would that help my visitors? If this site is known for and structured around it's best content...(the 35% that is irrelevant to my site), then it does me know good to link to them. If that type of content is what keeps them afloat, then they will probably have it front and center, and my visitors will never notice my "relevant" reasons for linking to that site.
This is, of course, assuming that you cannot find other sites that are 100% relevant to yours.
Besides all of that, I've never said that I bow down to the PR0-PR10 scale, because I don't.
Surely you are aware that what the herd chooses is frequently the wrong choice?
That is strictly an opinion. Just because you believe Nirvana's album should've been the most recognized social figure of the '90's, doesn't mean that it should've been and certainly doesn't mean that it was. The statistics of the masses are based on numbers, not feelings. If Mariah Carey's album sold more copies than Nirvana's, it simply means that more folks paid for Mariah's album. Maybe the culture that follows Nirvana was overly influenced by their lyrics and the meanings behind them; and maybe the entire '90's generation was directly affected by what Nirvana brought to alternative music and youth lifestyles, but that still doesn't change the numbers.
My observation that most webmasters would probably choose to link PR6-PR10 sites, is because most believe high-ranking sites to be of better substance. I, for one, am in no position to tell them that they are wrong.
Your hypothetical situation is flawed because all things are never equal. The site with the great content AND PR 5 may have a PR 5 powered by a link matchmaking service that in a month might get targeted and blown out of the index. Your average webmaster will be falling off the edge of the cliff with the rest of the herd in your scenario.
Of course things are never equal, which is why it was hypothetical. I used a hypothetical situation because there is no way to determine exactly how/why a site ranks at (ex. PR4) Meaning, two sites that rank PR4 may not have achieved PR4 the same way. If we don't know, and cannot pinpoint exactly each measure taken to determine pagerank, and could only use two factors (relevancy and PR), exchanging links with a PR1 won't be the same as exchanging with a PR8, and I believe most webmasters think this way.
But your observation here would imply that the Matchmaking site, which is now being shutdown, was the sole reason why my site ranked PR5. If you have 10 PR8 sites pointing to you and one of them shutdown, thereby eliminating that juicy link, does your pagerank drop drastically?
Suppose you were a wedding cake decorator based in Oregon. Suppose that in the course of chasing PR you traded links with nothing but plumbing supply stores in the UK. Your PR might increase, but your links (inbound and outbound, taken as a whole) would send a very confused message to the search engines. That would make it harder to rank well for "wedding cakes in Oregon", not easier. Few real life situations would be that extreme, but I hope it gives you the idea.
First, ...only a goofball web developer would trade links with a business that it totally unrelated to theirs! LOL Second, I never said anything about trading a ton of links with irrelevant sites. My position has always been: Look for sites in your niche (relevancy) with high PR, and seek to trade links. (IBL's and OBL's)
But your observation here would imply that the Matchmaking site, which is now being shutdown, was the sole reason why my site ranked PR5. If you have 10 PR8 sites pointing to you and one of them shutdown, thereby eliminating that juicy link, does your pagerank drop drastically?
I think if you had 10 PR8 relevant links, your site would probably be a PR6 and possibly even a 7...simply because PR8's are so incredibly more powerful exponentially than 7's and 6's.
My guess is that if you had 10 and lost one...it might not affect you too much. If you lost 5, you might drop from a 7 to a 6. If you only had 1 or 2 of those PR8 links, you'd drop considerably if you lost it, yes.
And if you were paying for that link, and you want to believe Matt knows what he's talking about, you can bank on dropping very soon.
You could almost make a PR5 with one link from a PR8.
Probably would. I just looked at a cyber school site that only had 4 links...all from government sites. It is a PR 5. None of them were PR8 pages that were linked, but they were 5's and 6's. I think now that the page rank of the homepage from the backlink is also added into the "juice".
Jan
I think if you had 10 PR8 relevant links, your site would probably be a PR6 and possibly even a 7...simply because PR8's are so incredibly more powerful exponentially than 7's and 6's.
My guess is that if you had 10 and lost one...it might not affect you too much. If you lost 5, you might drop from a 7 to a 6. If you only had 1 or 2 of those PR8 links, you'd drop considerably if you lost it, yes.
I totally agree with both statements!
Don't get me wrong. I totally understand what Martini has been saying, but I have to also consider (and not ignore) what has worked for me.
My theories are all based on research (Please don't think I'm just throwing up debate-material for the sake of debating!) LOL
My theories are all based on research (Please don't think I'm just throwing up debate-material for the sake of debating!) LOL
Same here, Celgins...although I've never been fortunate enough to get a PR8 incoming link. They'd have to pick me up off the floor and stop me from bowing and scraping to the owner of it if I did...:-)
Jan
