Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I mean, will your home page PR increase? Or does is the link better served going to the home page?
Also, would it be better linking to an established trusted page with PR, or linking to a new, fresh page with new origonal content.
Your second question depends on what you want to achieve, which page is the best landing page for the traffic, and so on. In other word, that's your judgment call and depends on how you define "better".
I've read/heard other SEO's talk about the need to build links to multiple interior pages - is this just to ensure they aren't in the supplemental, and that the site is capitalising on the "long tail" of search my matching against a bunch of pages and associated keywords - or do IBL's to a broad range of interior pages somehow contribute (other than sharing a smidgen of PR with the home page via on-page links) to the main site's PR?
If it's all based on each page's own PR - why would you (in the early stages of a site's history) do anything other than build links to the main site url and leave the other interior pages till later?
Consider a site that has been compromised by duplicate content issues, poor server setup, or whatever, having a high ranking authority site link to a deep internal page, giving that page the highest PR in the site, higher than even the home page. What does that do to the internal link design?
Well, I can tell you what it does. It messes it up. Suddenly you no longer have any control over which pages in your site have the highest PR, and the ability to pass that PR on to other areas of your site. It's completely out of your control. You have entire directories go to PR 0 because they are not getting as much PR from your home page. Now you are faced with having a page on your site that's a minor one perhaps in the big scheme of things, with more PR than your home page. And this is with hundreds of incoming links from other related sites to your home page. All it takes is one super powerful link from a site with high PR to screw it up.
I believe that's what I'm dealing with now. Google Webmaster Tools has a page listed as the one with highest PR that is 3 clicks deep from the home page. In reality, this page should have PR passed to it from other pages in the site as opposed to being in a position to pass major PR to other pages. The PR indicator shows my home page as PR5, and this page at PR2, but I'm anxious to see how that changes during the next PR update, which I understand should be coming in the next couple of weeks.
I believe it's a problem for me, and yet another example of how someone else can impact your site in a manner that isn't beneficial to the site, and you have little to no control over it.
The site linking to this internal page has had this link in place since 2004, and has just over the past few months apparently become a major authority site in its field. I'm going to check on its PR after the next update as well.
You have entire directories go to PR 0 because they are not getting as much PR from your home page.
High PR internal urls do not harm other pages on the site. If a url had a non-zero PR and then it goes to zero, either it was penalized, or it lost links, or the PR scale itself shifted and the url went from a "low PR 1" to a "high PR 0".
I have a lot of PR 4, 5, and 6 sites linking to mine. I haven't gone through all of them, but most seem to be in this range, so they should be able to pass some PR through to my site.
I'm going to keep watching, and see what happens.
I guess I'll add some content to the page, and link out to other pages in my site that I wouldn't normally link to in an attempt to spread some of that PR around a bit more evenly.
if I was concerned about the linker dropping their link, I would 301 googlebot to home, create a new page, and 301 all bots to the enw apge, but leave the old page visible to ie and firefox. The linker would never be aware of it what had happened unless they seriously investigated, and who would bother?
In any case, how is it cheating BeeDeeDubbleU? Who sets these rules, that prevent me 301ing my pages as I please?
Many sites have a no linking to inner pages policy. Personally, I LOVE inner page links, means I get more pages indexed, and higher rankings for inner pages, but surely you don;t think that because some site link to yours, you must then abide by some set of rules that site dictates?
On frequent occasions I have had inner pages at 6 when the home page is 5 (I have two, in fact - as of this moment). I dont see much screw up.
I know Page rank is for Pages, not sites, but basically all I wanted to know was if a PR 8-9 or 10 links to my PR page 0 (Site 5) is there a good chance my site PR will rise?
(The potential page linking to me has less than 10 outgoing links).
I know Page rank is for Pages, not sites, but basically all I wanted to know was if a PR 8-9 or 10 links to my PR page 0 (Site 5) is there a good chance my site PR will rise?
That's a good question. I'm watching to see what happens to PR for this internal page when it's next updated. Right now, it shows a PR2. If it doesn't come up some, I'll be convinced that there's something wrong at Webmaster Tools, as everything shows my home page at PR4 or 5 right now.
It would seem that the pages directly linked to from the internal page might get a PR boost, if the incoming link is strong enough.
Sandpetra, the PR will travel wherever you link from that page. That is why internal link structure of your site is important. Link to your home page from every page. Add breadcrumbs to your site. Have sensible navigation that spreads PR and provides several links to every page.
If you have good internal navigation, let the linking site point their link to whatever page seems the most appropriate to them. It's all good.
Is each page literally, judged simply on it's own PR merits - or is there a "building effect" of inbound links to multiple interior pages that overrides the maths of PageRank(tm).
PageRank is page by page. But with good internal linking that "building effect" is part of the math of the pagerank algo, it does not overr9ide the math.
On the other hand, there are factors that affect the SERPs of the page other than PageRank. Those can be site, domain or page related. Those deep links are important for everything site related. I've never had a site where I wanted the home page to rank for anything. The deep pages are much better suited for ranking.
Most sites are designed with the home page to have the most PR, the most inbound links, etc., and then distribute PR down to lesser pages as part of the site linking structure.
No, I don't know of any sites that are designed for the home page to have the most PR. I know of sites that are designed to distribute the PR that comes to the site. If it comes in deep, it is distributed back up. If it comes in at the top it is distributed down.
I know of badly designed sites that operate the way you suggest, but those were not designed with PR in mind.
Suddenly you no longer have any control over which pages in your site have the highest PR, and the ability to pass that PR on to other areas of your site.
What? Where the PR comes in is almost always out of your control, as it should be. But where it goes is completely within your control.
You have entire directories go to PR 0 because they are not getting as much PR from your home page.
That is completely nuts.
If you have a PR5 home page and someone links to a deep page with a PR7 link, it does not, and can not, have any negative effect on the PR of your home page. What will happen is that your home page should get a PR boost from the link home on that deep page, as will every other internal page linked from that deep page.
If your directory goes to PR0 it has nothing to do with gaining a deep link.
One thing to consider as well is "Is this PR8 link site the same theme as mine?" A completely off-topic PR8 link will not carry as much wieght as one that is the same topic/theme.
When it comes to PageRank it does. Theming *might* come into play in other areas, but not pagerank. If you can get a PR8-10 off-theme link, take it.
The other thing is how many in-bound links do you already have? It is a weighted average after all. So if you have 1000 IBLs of PR2 and 1 PR8, not much help
Totally wrong. The basic math behind PageRank is published. It is not a weighted average, it is a sum of the PR value of all the incoming links. A link from a PR8 page will pass that (PR8 - damping value)/number of links to your page. That will be added to the PR from those 1000 PR2 pages to determine your PR.
PageRank is a classic example of technology that is misundertood much too often, even though the information is freely available. There is no good reason to take it in second hand, or third hand, or worse.
[edited by: tedster at 4:25 am (utc) on Jan. 8, 2007]
surely you don;t think that because some site link to yours, you must then abide by some set of rules that site dictates
Always remember that a site that gives you a powerful link could just as easily take it down.
It's wise to make sure that any changes you make to the page they're linking to stay consistent with their purpose for linking. That's not a matter of "rules", it's a matter of practical reality if you want to keep that link.
it will benefit all pages on the site, so do nothing
but surely you don;t think that because some site link to yours, you must then abide by some set of rules that site dictates?
No, not if you don't value the link. If you are not bothered about retaining the link go ahead and take your chances, it's your website. I am fairly sure however that the webmasters of most PR8 sites would take the links they provide seriously and run periodic checks on them. I only have PR6 and I do.
"We assume page A has pages T1...Tn which point to it (i.e., are citations). The parameter d is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1. We usually set d to 0.85. There are more details about d in the next section. Also C(A) is defined as the number of links going out of page A. The PageRank of a page A is given as follows:"
PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))
As you can see d would be average across the outbound links (C) thus damping the entire PR flow across the number of linked pages, correct?
It looks to me as if the incoming PR is damped based on the .85 factor, and then divided by the number of outbound links on the page.
To get to the nuts and bolts of the initial question, here is what it looks like should be done with an inbound PR8 link, if your goal is to spread it across the breadth of your site.
The target page (your page with the IBL of PR8) should have very few outbound links. I'd say if possible on link back to your domain.
If on the other hand, you had a page within your site that you wanted to boost PR for, you would send the PR only to that page.
"It is not a weighted average, it is a sum of the PR value of all the incoming links."
Without an average the sum of the PR value of all incoming links has to be averaged. The sum of the PR value of all incoming links would be
IBL1= PR8 + IBL2= PR3
PR would be 11.
But, I do understand the concept of PageRank to a certain degree. I would think that PR travels in all directions. Upwards, downwards, sideways, etc. (360°). Internal linking structure will determine how that PR is distributed throughout your site. The root domain will typically hold the highest level of PR and then everything else revolves around that. If sub-domains are being used, there may be instances where they have a higher PR than the root domain.
It only took me 3 years! i must have been talking pap all this time.
buckworks - To continue with a metaphor (and PAP!) as soon as you mention seo PR to people their eyes glaze over. The same frankly, for
"how engineers plan the ventilation in a mine"
My pal is a heating engineer and if I want a good sleep I talk to him about that very subject.
The metaphor i am currently formulating is that it is PEOPLE RANK (PR) (mainly to help customers think about how you get it, not distributed on site).
here goes:
You have a site with 10 links pointing to you:
After you explain the basic of PR (much like an earthquake scale) - ie it's a big difference moving from 2-3 than it is 8-9.
Youre a young scientist (As youre new on the scene Google wants to determine how good you are as a scientist.)
Google polls 10 people about you (site, page, keyword, aspect, topic etc)
10 people vote for you "good".
9 of those people voting are off the street and Google knows little about them (they have a PR 1). They are not experts.
The other person however is Einstein.
Google knows about Einstein and has already worked out what Einstein says is usually good info.(He is a PR 10)
Google therefore counts all the votes (10)
Google notes Einstein voted. Einsteins vote is obviously worth more than all the other voters together. Your a scientist - hes a scientist.
Google works out because all these people vote for you, inc. and most importantly Einstein, youre a worthwhile addition to it's search engine. You are credited with a PR @5 becuase Einstein and some other people voted for you.
Google now knows about you and rates you highly, mainly becuase Einstein reffered you, but also because more and more over time other people begin voting for you.
The important point is:
You want more Einsteins to link to you. The more the better. Replace Einstein with BBC, CNN etc or your sectors leading light.
Once customers get that you can start introducing the basics of variables, dilution weight etc).
As I said, it's just something I am toying with in my head to see if I can start thinking about it a bit differently.
Or you can just say:
PR is Chicken and the egg. Do you really want to know?:)
[edited by: sandpetra at 5:38 pm (utc) on Jan. 8, 2007]
then it would be a bad idea to get more links to the home page since there is no posibility for the page rank to travel upwards
I don't get the logic -- there are no pages "upward" so what's the issue with linking to the domain root? Page Rank will still be voted with every link the Home Page holds. If you are hoping to boost an iternal page, then certainly a direct inbound link to it is ideal. But there' nothing bad about a good link to any of your pages.
The only thing that is keeping you from figuring out the math, is the fact that you keep telling yourself that it is math and it is scary. Here it is in simple form.
The real PR of your page equals all the PR passed from all your incoming links added together. There you go. If you can add up the money in your wallet, you can do the PR calculation for your page.
To figure out how much of your real PR you are sending out with each link, count the number of links on your page. Take that PR that you added up in the last step and divide it by the number of links going out of that page. That is basically the amount of PR that each link "votes" for the page that it points to.
Don't worry about the "damping factor" because it only has a real significance when trying to calculate exactly what is happening. It is not important to understanding PR.
True, In general with homepage PR travels in leniar fashion, A simple common example of homepage linking would be PR5>>PR4>>PR3>>PR2>>PR1 and internal page linking would be PR3<<PR4<<PR5>>PR4>>PR3. I understand that you suggest to have direct links so that the home page can give the similar effect. But one thing is many of us would not like, too many links on the home page which might coufuse the visitor wherein internal page can accomadate. And some times it is more relevant to link, to and fro from the intermediate pages.
pageoneresults wrote:I would think that PR travels in all directions. Upwards, downwards, sideways, etc. (360°). Internal linking structure will determine how that PR is distributed throughout your site. The root domain will typically hold the highest level of PR and then everything else revolves around that.
This seems to be the issue with my site right now. The PR distribution isn't the way I intended it to be, and is no longer working in the way the site was designed to distribute PR. Since the highest PR page on my site doesn't link to other sections of the site where PR needs to be distributed. I can add links to the page, but it wouldn't be logical to do so, as other similar pages in the site (that have lower PR) don't link back to other sections in that manner.
