PR distribution

inbound links to 2nd, 3rd level pages

[bluecorr]

Because one of my sites has a 3 level pages which will suffer because of PR distribution I thought about getting quality inbound links to those unfortunate 3rd level pages to boost their PR but then I realised that if I do this then the homepage will suffer so instead of having a PR5 homepage and PR4 2nd level pages and so on I'll have PR4 homepage and higher PR for 2nd level pages. Is this the algorithm? And is this bad?

But if with every click further away from the homepage the PR decreases will it decrese from PR4 (homepage's PR) for example or stick to the high PR given by good inbound links?

Thanks

[fathom]

Actually attempting to receives deeplinks is a good overall strategy.

In the short-term it may seem that you are diverting attention from the mainpage, but evenly distributed PageRank is far better over the long-term.

A couple of examples:

1. PageRank in most sites flows down... that is, deeplinked pages tend not to benefit at all from PageRank since a single point of incoming PageRank (mainpage) means you have limited options on how best to distribute. (I prefer a site to flow up and from many).

Muliple points of incoming PageRank provides flexibility (e.g. certain pages linked from mainpage receiving the maximum benefit of that PageRank while other pages deep in your structure (that normally get little mainpage PR tranfer can benefit from developed PageRank from somewhere's else.

2. A big plus of multiple PageRank distribute points (which I recently experience first hand) in the event of a server down time - right in the middle of googlebot's crawls many web pages are inadvertently un-indexed.

In this case, if your mainpage is removed at or near the end of googlebot crawl -- all of your PageRank is gone as well, if only links point to mainpage.

In addition, higher PageRank site get crawled more often so the loss of a mainpage (and all of your PageRank) means googlebot may not return for a very long time.

Diversification in all business strategies is very wise.

[edited by: fathom at 8:21 am (utc) on Nov. 30, 2002]

[seindal]

As far as I have understood, the pagerank of a ranked page (not all pages have a separately calculated pagerank) is determined by the amount and quality of incoming links. The placement in the site is irrelevant.

A non-ranked page has an approximate pagerank based on its distance from a ranked page. If your top page is ranked PR5, then unranked pages below will get PR4. If you have a second-level page with a calculated pagerank, then the approximate pagerank doesn't come into play.

On my family domain the highest ranked page is at the third level

top 5
sub-1 6
sub-2a 7
sub-2b 6

Since nobody in their right mind would like the top page, which is just an index of the persons using the domain, the system here is reversed. The power-horses are three second-level folders with PR6 and PR7, which then spread a bit of PR upwards in the hierarchy.

It seems there are really two types of PR around. A calculated PR for ranked pages, and an approximate PR for non-ranked pages. Anyway, that is how I have understood the whole thing.

René.

[bluecorr]

Thanks! very helpful indeed :)