What is a good page rank?

[carjocky]

Now before everyone says 10 which we all know, I am wondering what is good to receive a decent amount of traffic. I have my index page ranked at 4 and cannot seem to get it to go higher. So my question is this. What is the pagerank threshold # that everyone thinks is a very good pagerank?

[jetteroheller]

Page Rank is a pernament change.

Just right now, my main site has PR5 on the index
2 subdomains also 5.

All the other index pages of the domains have PR4

The pages in the folders have usual 2 or 3.

For many detailed searches, 2 or 3 is enough to be good visible.

[netmeg]

Some of my best ranking sites are PR0. I absolutely don't believe it means anything.

[ska_demon]

I have a site PR5. It gets 1 or 2 visitors per day.

I have another site PR0. It gets 500 or so unique visitors per day.

Pagerank is an outdated method of determining the value of IBL's and little else. Therefore IMO PR has no real play in where your site will/should rank.

Ska

[frox]

Yes, since PR checking (and PR tricks) has been made so easy I think they have left it just to have webmaster talk about it. They are now using better algos that are less influenced by PR links.

What now matters much more is QUALITY links, links from pages that have good contents and contents that are related to the subject.

I have been requested a SEO consultancy by a guy that has a PR4 site for a quite small niche (italian-ukrainan commerce & relationships). Despite his PR4, his site is ranking EXTREMELY low, and he wanted me to help with that.

By examining the backlinks I found a LOT of them (over 1.000) and at least three PR5 guestbooks that linked to him (one on a site about american birds, one on a site about a rock group and another about humor, in french).

It turned out he had gone around doing a real link spamming campaign, and harmed his site beyond repair.

All those unqualified links gave him a strong PR but destroyed his ranking!

[carjocky]

By examining the backlinks I found a LOT of them (over 1.000) and at least three PR5 guestbooks that linked to him (one on a site about american birds, one on a site about a rock group and another about humor, in french).

How can you find all the back links. I have msn,yahoo and others list over 100 but google only shows 9 out of 12 listed. I dont get it...

[frox]

google only shows 9

Yes, that's normal, google display far fewer links.

Just look at Google and Yahoo and Msn ...

[treeline]

To check backlinks try using alltheweb.com they seem to make it easiest. Google deliberately doesn't show all of them to frustrate attempts to copy another site's success.

[tedster]

[siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com...] is also a good place to check. Makes it easy to separate out deep links by the page.

[le_gber]

tedster that's a really cool tool thanks for the link

[frox]

Meh, tedster, thanks for the link!

I didn't know that, you really never stop learning!

EDIT after some playing aroung.

Smartest feature of the year: Export to TSV

Also I discovered 3 highly targeted and authoritative PR7 inlinks to my site! Time for a PR update, Google!

Taht made my day definitely better :-)

[treeline]

Wow! The site explorer IS really cool. Thanks for the tip!

[Komodo_Tale]

This is something I wrote for another site in answer to questions about the value of PageRank. . .

>>> IMO Google takes little notice of PageRank when ranking sites

Technically speaking, Google PageRank and where you rank in the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) are parallel indicators, not dependent indicators. What does that mean? Both PageRank and SERPS placement are determined by mathematic algorithms, however, the factors used to determine SERPS placement are more numerous and more complex than those used to determine PageRank.

In a nutshell, PageRank is determined by how many other web pages link to a particular website and web page, the PageRank of websites and web pages linking to the website and web page in question, minus any penalties.

From [google.com...]

PageRank Technology: PageRank performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the number of votes it receives.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. Important pages receive a higher PageRank and appear at the top of the search results. Google's technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance. There is no human involvement or manipulation of results, which is why users have come to trust Google as a source of objective information untainted by paid placement.

SERPS are determined by the a combination of the same factors used to determined PageRank PLUS relevant content.

Again from [google.com...]

Hypertext-Matching Analysis: Google's search engine also analyzes page content. However, instead of simply scanning for page-based text (which can be manipulated by site publishers through meta-tags), Google's technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts, subdivisions and the PageRankecise location of each word. Google also analyzes the content of neighboring web pages to ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user's query.

The end result is that:

1. A page with better content can sit higher in the SERPS than a page with higher PageRank.
   
2. Of two pages with equally strong content, the one with higher PageRank will rank higher in the SERPS.
   
3. Strong PageRank may boost a page with weaker content above a page with better content.
   

While PageRank does not actually determine SERPS placement, the same factors used to determine PageRank are part of the larger formula used to determine SERPS.

What does this mean for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

First, you must first determine the best Key Words and Key Phrases for your site based on the number of inquires those Key Words and Key Phrases receive on the search engines.

The first step is to create an exhaustive list of Key Words and Key Phrases that are relevant to your website and receive frequent inquiries on the search engines..

Once you have developed an exhaustive set of Key Words and Key Phrases that receive frequent inquiries, you need to determine which Key Words and Key Phrases you can realistically compete for to rank highly in the SERPS. It does no good to compete for GOLDEN WIDGETS if the top 30 sites are all top-flight competitors.

But how do you know if you can compete in the SERPS? Guess what? PageRank is still the best indicator. If you have a PageRank3 and the top ten sites are all PageRank7, you will almost never break into the top ten until you achieve a PageRank7. If you do see a PageRank3 in the top ten when all the rest are PageRank7, then everything below that PageRank3 probably has weak content and you may be able to compete. Don't hold your breath though.

Lets say that the average PageRank for the Key Words and Key Phrases BRAIDED GOLDEN WIDGETS is PageRank3, then if you optimize your page for BRAIDED GOLDEN WIDGETS you will be able to compete from your PageRank3 web page for a high SERPS ranking.

Only after you have optimized your web page to compete in Key Words and Key Phrases with similar PageRank should you begin competing for Key Words and Key Phrases with a higher average PageRank. To do so, get links. One way links from related (read relevant) websites with equal or higher PageRank than yours are best, while reciprocal links are still valuable and much easier to get. Then when you do achieve an increase in PageRank, reevaluate your Key Words and Key Phrases to determine if there are relevant Key Words and Key Phrases that receive more search engine inquiries and where the top SERPS ten average PageRank equals or is less than your pages new PageRank. If there are better Key Words and Key Phrases within your reach, re-optimize your page and go after them.

In the case of a Key Words and Key Phrases that gets a large number of inquiries, you might decide that you don't need to be on the first page and that page two will be fine. In general, once you determine where you would like to rank for a particular Key Words and Key Phrases, look at the average PageRank for [–5 <= Target Rank <= +5] to determine if the goal is realistic. For example, if your target is #20 in the SERPS for GOLDEN WIDGETS, then use the average PageRank for listings 15 to 25.

The worst thing you can do is to try to compete for high Key Words and Key Phrases SERPS against websites that clearly have high PageRank and good content. The only thing you will accomplish is to diminish your existing traffic.

I believe that by using this disciplined approach you will steadily increase you website traffic while you earn your way to better SERPS and better Key Words and Key Phrases.

The Komodo Tale

[Jordo needs a drink]

I would say 5 or better. The only reason I say it is that it seems google's bot visits much more on 5 and higher.

[Simsi]

It turned out he had gone around doing a real link spamming campaign, and harmed his site beyond repair.

I was under the impression that other sites linking to you didn't "harm" your site, merely thet they may not necessarily "help" your site as there is little you can do to stop others linking to you?

[frox]

I was under the impression that other sites linking to you didn't "harm" your site, merely thet they may not necessarily "help" your site as there is little you can do to stop others linking to you?

Well, I guess (it's only a guess) that a few "spammy" links won't hurt you, but over a certain threshold I am pretty sure you can be hurt.

Google probably has some algos to try and identify spammy links such as link farms, guestbooks where anybody can post his own URL etc.

There are even guys seling lists of high-PR guestbooks where you can post links!

[JudgeJeffries]

Once upon a time PR was almost the be all and end all but it doesnt seem to be very important on my sites anymore. I have a PR6 site thats sandboxed and other PR5 sites that are regularly beaten by PR3 sites.

Talking about PR, I have a two year old site with 600+ incoming links both one way and reciprocal and its still at PR1 with the internal pages at PR0.
Anyone have any ideas?

[ScottD]

JudgeJeffries

600 links is a lot, enough to have PR6 easily.

So - what are the links? Are they all showing in Google as back links or do you mean 600 in yahoo for example? Are they "real" links as Matt Cutts might say? Did you earn them? Are there 450 from just one site? I certainly don't mean to criticise. If you have 600 backlinks showing in Google from unique sites that aren't paid for, link farm style pages, then you certainly deserve a PR6 and may have some other serious problem. Canonical issue? PR hijack? Hard to say.

On a more general level, this question asked about PR in relation to getting good traffic, but MC said some good things in this regard. A high PR site with very little content won't get good traffic generally, as users look up so many different phrases that you simply can't optimise for them all.

Concentrate on adding good quality, useful and relevant content, within a logical site structure. That boosts your PR, finds those users who look up things you would never imagine, and most importantly makes the user believe in you. Then they may link to you, they may return to your site, bookmark you...they may even buy something