PR4 with no inward links, how?

[Mark_A]

I have a page on a site with no inward links, that has a PR4, how is that possible?

It is a page with lots of other onsite pages linking to it but it has no inward links from other sites, not even dmoz.

[tedster]

It is a page with lots of other onsite pages linking to it

And there is your answer. PR flows through all links - they don't need to come from a different website.

[Mark_A]

It has 344 internal inward links.

But I thought there had to be some PR ranked pages / sites linked to the page for it to develop PR itself.

Oh well, live an learn :-)

[tedster]

Do you mean that no page on the website - not a single one - has any inbound links anywhere on the web?

[wdny]

I know one website with about 10 internal pages. The website have absolutely no inbound links and PR3. Do you have any idea why the website have PR3?

Thank you,

[edited by: tedster at 6:39 pm (utc) on Apr 17, 2010]

[tedster]

I have seen this kind of thing now and then over recent years - at least I've seen websites with no "obvious" inbound links that still have PR-3 or PR-4 for some of their pages. Usually there are scraper sites and what have you that are linking, but such backlinks don't appear on Google's link: operator or WMT.

Why does this happen? I have a suspicion that it is related to what Matt Cutts once said - that Google has a few things they do to help "Mom & Pop" sites compete with the heavy hitter websites.

[edited by: tedster at 8:10 pm (utc) on Apr 17, 2010]

[Mark_A]

from tedster "Do you mean that no page on the website - not a single one - has any inbound links anywhere on the web?"

I cannot be sure there are no links to some pages. I just checked for links to the main homepage and the main PR4 subpage. There were no inward links to those pages although google did list some "internal" pages as links.

[TheMadScientist]

at least I've seen websites with no "obvious" inbound links that still have PR-3 or PR-4 for some of their pages.

Uh, yeah, and how's your C drive's PR8 holding up BTW? Personally, I think it's a 'Whatever, it's TBPR and even though it's faulty and does goofy things it's still a bit better than cpedia, so shrug and move on...' type situation.

PR is passed internally too, so it could be coming from internal links in some manner, but personally, I'd worry way more about traffic and rankings than the TBPR.

[cangoou]

You can pass (some) TBPR through a 301-redirect as well.

[Mark_A]

TBPR?

[g1smd]

TBPR = ToolBarPageRank

What are you using the determine that there are no incoming links?

Check in Google WebmasterTools that no inbound links are listed. Check both the example.com and www.example.com reports to be sure. You cannot rely on the

link:

search in public SERPs. Check again using Yahoo SiteExplorer too.

[Mark_A]

OK, there are some inward links. Bing is listing them but Google is not. (apparently)

[tedster]

Google has never said that they list "all" links that point to a url - the list has always and only been a sampling. The sampling is fuller within Webmaster Tools than it is in the public site: operator. But it has never been complete, and likely will never be complete either, because that would allow very aggressive reverse engineering of the SERPs.

Some search engines - Ask.com for example - don't even report links at all. I think the Ask algorithm is VERY heavily dependent on link neighborhoods and that's why they protect their link data so intensely.

[Mark_A]

Well I have found Google WebmasterTools but I am not sure I want to use it. It would link my gmail address and google cookies permanently to the websites that I am interested in. I am not sure that is a wise thing for me to do.

[internetheaven]

I've managed to create a PR5 with no outwardly visible inbound links at all in the past.

If you find a goldmine of good links you tend to not want your competitors to find out about it and there are a few good ways of hiding them.

As long as you can keep them out of Yahoo Sitexplorer and Google Backlinks checker (whilst still allowing both to add those links to your linkmap) then most competitors assume it's a TBPR flaw or that you faked it and just leave you alone ... and steal your content instead ...

[tedster]

I have found Google WebmasterTools but I am not sure I want to use it.

Your misgivings about allowing Google to connect all your sites are shared by others. The positives are that you will get data on how Google sees the verified site that is not available any other way. Here are some key areas beyond the backlinks bounty:

1. Google's data on IMPRESSIONS for the website in the search results, not just clicks.
   
   
2. The "Fetch as googlebot" tool is the best way to know if your server has been hacked. Today's hackers often cloak their parasite links for only Google to see, and there's an epidemic of that.
   
   
3. You get an authenticated communications channel between your site and Google.
   
   
4. Google's own Site Performance metrics for your website, which are now at least a small part of the algorithm. Since those numbers come from toolbar data, you're not going to see them any other way.

There's lots and lots more, too. I urge you to set up one site and play with the free data Google offers before you rule it out completely. I was once reluctant, too. Now I've changed my tune.

[Mark_A]

Thanks for that tedster, I will pick a site and have a play with it.

I suppose I should not worry about my works site because it already uses google analytics and spends a lot in adwords so google is perfectly aware of its existance and our (the company's) interest in the site.

[Mark_A]

However a thought about that site.

I was going to erase it, but now that it seems to have picked up a PR4 I may do something with it instead :-)

Good news all round!

[kevsta]

i wouldnt make decisions based on tbpr readings, it could be gone as quickly as it came.

we had an inner page go tbpr 8 for a couple of days a few weeks ago.

[YouDontKnowMe]

Could be droppped domain, or previously had backlinks which were later removed.

[Mark_A]

Am going to investigate backlinks with bing (at the weekend) as it seems to list more links than google.

[seoN00B]

Backlinks it doesnt mean PR. Rich content is also a big factor.

I have so many sites that doesnt have back links but has a good PR because of the content.

[internetheaven]

I have so many sites that doesnt have back links but has a good PR because of the content.

If you're talking about Pagerank, it has nothing to do with on page content. Pagerank is 100% links.

If you're talking about Public Relations, then yes, content is very important.

[espsol]

ok so links are the secret behind this... thanks all for your guidance :)

[tedster]

If you're talking about Pagerank, it has nothing to do with on page content. Pagerank is 100% links.

I want to emphasize this point loud and clear. Too many people around the web are spreading ideas that PageRank has something to do with keywords, or content, or relevance. It does not. PageRank is what Google calls a "query-independent" factor in the algorithm, just as trust is also query-independent.

No content involved in a PR calculation, no keywords either - just links, links and links.

Google has shifted the original formula around in ways we are not sure of - mostly bout when they do or don't count a link and how the split up a page's total PR vote. But the content parts of the overall algorithm, the "query-dependent" factors are completely separate from PageRank.

The idea behind PageRank was that people give you a link because they like your content. But to have a PageRank effect, the link has to be there, not just the part where "they like it". Google cannot directly measure something as hazily defined as "quality content."

[Mark_A]

When I analyse the top 10 positions for a keyword or keyphrase I look at 1) PageRank, 2) Inward links and 3) number of pages on the site containing the keyword or keyphrase.

I think that gives me an idea of what my site needs to be like to get towards the top 10 in the SERPS.

Am I missing anything?

[seoN00B]

@espsol then how come some of my sites has a good PR without backlinks? :P

@tedster i disagree bro.. links has little effect on page rank. I been building massive links for years and there is only a little difference on PR.

[tedster]

PageRank evaluates two things: how many links there are to a web page from other pages, and the quality of the linking sites.

Reference [google.com]

[seoN00B]

Yes bro i believed that before that PR is all about links. But after what ive observed links has a little to do with PR.

[tedster]

I'm not just sharing a belief here. I've been doing SEO as my entire career from before Google was invented. Then I followed the development of PageRank and the rest of Google's algorithm very closely as it evolved.

Many people have had a tough time understanding PageRank from the beginning of Google. That's because PageRank is an iterated function, and the math around that can be a bit unfamiliar. But I don't want to see anyone get even more confused.

------------

Here's why you see only a little change in PageRank even from a lot of links.

PageRank on the toolbar is approximately a logarithmic scale. That means going from a PR-2 to a PR-3 takes EXPONENTIALLY more links than going from PR-1 to PR-2 did. Then going from a 3 to a 4 takes an even bigger jump, again exponentially.

Since all we ever see is a change in steps of 1 PR unit, that means we can get a LOT of links and still see only a small change in PageRank -- or even no change at all.

In addition, PageRank is only exported to the toolbar about four times a year. That means we can't even see the effects of our backlink growth on PageRank as it happens.