Focusing PageRank Question

to index page

[BMach]

Which method would be better at focusing all of a site's PR to the index page. Lets say this site has 50 pages.

Method 1:

Index page with one outbound link to a (map) page. The map page has 48 outbound links to (content) pages. The content pages have one outbound link to the index page.
I ran this through a PR calculator and the index page gets most of the PR but the map page also gets allot.

Method 2:

Index page with 49 outbound links to (content) pages. The content pages have one outbound link to the index page. I ran this through a PR calculator and the index page gets more PR than in method one. I don't trust the PR calculator I used and would appreciate some human feedback on this. So which method would be better or is there a better way than what I have mentioned to get the bulk of the PR focused to the index page. Thanks

[bhartzer]

I would put one outgoing link on the home page to the sitemap page and a few important pages--and have all pages link to the home page (i.e., www.domain.com, not www.domain.com/index.html).

I wouldn't trust any PR calculator nowadays. PageRank is most likely being calculated differently now than any of those PR calculators. The PR calculators use the old PR calculation, as originally published. Google doesn't own the PR calculation, they only own the trademark for the word PageRank. Some big California university owns the patent on Pagerank. Since Google, Inc. doesn't want to pay that big university huge royalty fees, it's most likely that they came up with their own PR calculation recently.

[BMach]

Sorry, yeah I meant linking back to www.domain.com. Thanks. I am thinking of going with method 1 but read that google could consider this linking structure to be spam. I guess thats only if the so called content pages really have content. I'm just curious, if I use method 1 (home 1> site map 50> content(50) 1> home) how many content pages could I have with a PR of 3 if the home page has a PR of 5? Not sure if its a low, mid or high 5. Pretty sure that would make a difference. Any idea?

[steveb]

Method 1 sends your PR through a needless pitstop. It should be obvious that less PR will be returned to your main page.

Basically you are asking, if only one link was in question, which is better for page1:
page1 links to page2 links to page3 links to page1
or
page1 links to page2 links to page1

It's better for page1 to not to go through an extra step.

[BMach]

steveb, that's what the PR calculator came up with too. I just wasn't sure if it was right. Having an extra (map) page leaves pr where you don't really need it, at least in my case. So I guess the best way is to have all the links on my home page and then just link the pages back? Wouldn't this affect the inbound/outbound link ratio of the home page though? Isn't that part of the equation?

[HarryM]

Another way to look at it is from the users point of view. With method 1 you have a dead page. Users have to click to a further page before being able to navigate your site - that's a click a lot of users wouldn't be bothered to make. And as steveb says, its the worst case for PR.

You really have two basic options although there are lots of variants to play around with.

(1) Link all your 50 pages from the index page in which case you don't need a site map. This spreads the PR evenly between the pages and if they link back to the index page maximises the index page PR. You also don't waste PR on a site map.

The index page doesn't need to be a list of links. You could have the most useful placed prominently for easy navigation and the remainder as less prominent. But probably 50 pages is about the limit for this sort of layout.

A disadvantage is users will have to go back to the index page to get to another page, unless you interlink all your pages.

(2) Divide your pages into themes, link to one "head" page in each theme from the index page, interlink all the pages in each theme, and link back to the index page from each page. This layout benefits from a site map. For easy navigation you could interlink the themes at the head page.

This layout gives you (approximately) a PRx, PR(x-1), PR(x-2) scenario. But if you get deep links it tends to boost the PR of the theme linked to.

[BMach]

Thanks, I am happy to hear that the simplest plan is the best way to route PR back to the home page, so it seems. What about the inbound/outbound link ratio of the home page though? Won't all the links be canceling each other out? If the home page casts a vote to content page A and content page A casts a vote back to the home page this nulls the vote back to the home page, I think?

[steveb]

No it doesn't null the vote. They both cast positive votes. Both pages benefit.

[instand1]

Any page that gets more inbound links gets more PR. The number of outbound pages does not harm the page. It only dilutes its impact on the pages linked to, when there are too many links on the page.

[ciml]

As steve points out, method 2 will deliver more PageRank to the home page. Really though, the difference between 1 and 2 is tiny (much less than one tenth of one notch of PR on the Toolbar scale). In terms of Internet marketing, this is almost as much of a non-issue as putting your favourite keywords in bold text.

I agree with bhartzer that linkig from your home page to your most important pages is sensible, but the trademark issue is a red herring IMO.