More than PR for ranking?

[JamesR]

After seeing some interesting upward movement with a lower PR site passing higher PR sites, decided to do some checking. Here is the PR from the Google toolbar for the top 20 listings on 1 sample two word phrase:

#1 6
#2 4
#3 6
#4 6
#5 5
#6 6
#7 6
#8 6
#9 6
#10 6
#11 6
#12 6
#13 4
#14 6
#15 5
#16 4
#17 5
#18 5
#19 4
#20 5

Listings 2, 5, and 13 seem to get boosts, possibly from click data. PR must play some kind of role, but not 100%.

[Brett_Tabke]

I think they are purely playing games with displays in the toolbar ...

I found a site that is showing pr8 in the directory - same page is showing pr4 in the toolbar.

[caine]

Brett,

how far is it down the directory ?

[Truck]

Sorry, I am new to this where are you geting this numbers from?

[JamesR]

>I think they are purely playing games with displays in the toolbar

Interesting. Maybe I will try to recalc the search above with directory PR...

Recalc and translating directory PR to toolbar PR using ChrisR's Handy Dandy Guide [searchnerd.com]

#1 5
#2 not listed
#3 5
#4 NL
#5 NL
#6 NL
#7 5
#8 5
#9 6 or 7
#10 NL
#11 NL
#12 NL
#13 3 or 4
#14 5
#15 NL
#16 3 or 4
#17 5
#18 5
#19 3 or 4
#20 NL

Conclusions to this little study:

--ChrisR's conversion chart may be a little off. Translation usually came out 1 PR rank below the actual toolbar rank

--PR was pretty consistent between directory and toolbar when translated except listings 17, 18, 19 that came out exacty when they should have been 1 degree lower.

Interesting thought: if Google's PR is based partly on ODP influence AND Yahoo is using Google PR to some degree, ODP listings affect rank on Yahoo to a degree. No wonder Yahoo wants them out of the picture. However, ODP impact is minimal if sites are strongly linked elsewhere (9 sites above were not in the Google ODP, 7 were not in ODP at all and still ranking well. 2 must have been added recently and awaiting Google directory update)

--Keywords in title, description, URL, and Yahoo category still are the main criteria for consideration in ranking for a search term.

--All but one site out of 20 had both search terms in the title.

--plural and singular are considered different. (i.e. webmaster does NOT equal webmasters)

[vitaplease]

I found a site that is showing pr8 in the directory - same page is showing pr4 in the toolbar

Interesting observation Brett, never came across such a discrepancy, could it be that the directory was still lagging behind in the latest update?
(seems unlikely, as a pr8 is not easily punished towards a pr4).

[danny]

My impression is that Yahoo "Web Sites" are ranked on a combination of Google PR and level within the Yahoo directory - that is, sites that are in high level categories within Yahoo's directory rank above sites that may have higher PR but are in deeper categories.

Danny.

[chiyo]

Interesting discussion for me. One of our sites has slipped from position 4 to position 8 on this update in the main SERPS for our keyword, but in the directory it has moved up to position 3 when i use dir.google.com. I'm still trying to work out what this means, and this thread helps, but still looking for the practical answers.