High PR and Rank

High PR does not seem to always mean top

[ogletree]

When I do a search for keyword1 keyword2 the results don't seem to make sence. I thought that the higher the PR the better you did in the results. So if you were a PR5 and you have the highest rank for that keyword and you have the kewords in your title and description then you are highest. I also have seen if there is a 2 word phrase typed in and somebody with a high PR has only one of those words they will be number one. With keyword1 keyword2 the first person is a PR5 and has the phrase in title and description. The second non back link has one word in the title and both words in the description. Now here is where it gets weird the next non back link site is a PR6 and has the phrase in the title and description. Granted there are just not very much in this catagory. Why do the results look like that.

Also it seems to me that unless you have PR5 you are not going to be on the first page. Even if the whole first page is completly unrelated and yours if very related. This whloe PR thing just seems to be the worst way to order sites. THe only reason they have it is to stop spamming.

[edited by: heini at 8:34 pm (utc) on April 24, 2003]
[edit reason] no specifics please / thank you [/edit]

[buckworks]

<<I thought that the higher the PR the better you did in the results.>>

Not necessarily. PR is only one of many factors that influence how pages are ranked for different terms. It is common to see lower-PR pages ranking better than higher-PR pages because they've done a better job of optimizing for a particular search term.

[eWhisper]

<<Also it seems to me that unless you have PR5 you are not going to be on the first page.>>

I have a page that's PR3, and another of PR4, that comes up 1st-5th for several competitive results where all the other first results page are PR5-7.

PR is just one factor of many, and optimizing a page without the PR can lead to high results.

[Oaf357]

PR is definitely not the end all be all of Google SERPs

[hotelquest]

PR is not the end all in ranking for sure. However, suppose there are a 100 factors that Google considers before rating a page. And for two such pages if 99 of these parameters are scored identical, the one with the higher PR would get a higher rank. Its PR that tips the scale.

[JayC]

However, suppose there are a 100 factors that Google considers before rating a page. And for two such pages if 99 of these parameters are scored identical, the one with the higher PR would get a higher rank. Its PR that tips the scale.

OK. Now suppose that there 100 factors considered, and for two pages the PageRank is identical and so are 98 other factors. Now whichever one is left not identical is the one which tips the scale.

PageRank isn't that much more influential than anything else. On the other hand, it's valuable because a relatively high PR will help you rank well for any search query, while most other elements (anchor text, heading tag content, page titles, whatever) help only with queries for a specific set of keywords.

And, we tend to value it more because it's right there on the toolbar easy to see. If instead of PageRank the toolbar had a measure of how good your keyword density is, that's what everyone would obsess over. :)

[Oaf357]

I just wish there was a way to see your actual PR without using the toolbar (which gives a simulated PR).

[PatrickDeese]

I just wish there was a way to see your actual PR without using the toolbar (which gives a simulated PR).

there is [google.com]!

[Oaf357]

Funny guy.