PR3 beats a PR7...but how

[bokesch]

This baffles me...

Site XYZ has a PR3 and comes up before site ABC which has a PR7 for my search phrase.

Why does this happen...i thought PR was a big part of the google formula.

[Mohamed_E]

> i thought PR was a big part of the google formula.

No, it is just one of very many pieces of the Google algorithm.

[rfgdxm1]

Right. Check site ABC. Is it well optimized for the search phrase?

[doc_z]

PR is an important point. However, there are also others such as anchor text, title, ...

[cornwall]

Remember that PR is not the only factor. If it were, then every search on Google would bring up PR10 pages irrespective of whether they were relevant to that particular search or not

The purpose of the algoithim is (supposedly) to deliver relevant information for that particular query, and as the above post says, PR is only one factor

[stratocaster]

Anchor text. Domain name and anchor text are the most important thing. If you wanna rank high all you gotta do is go pay someone with pr 7 or 8 sites to link to you with the phrase you wanna rank well with. I went ahead and did this last month with some buddies who gave me big bold links at the top of their homepages that rank 7. Will see how it works out soon.

[duckhunter]

I have proven that you can achieve top 5 listings with low PR and even number 1 spots regularly. You just have to be optimized better than the other guys (as mentioned above).

How's the PR3's Theme?

How many words in the search, more that 2? If so, it's more about optimization than PR.

[fathom]

How's the PR3's Theme?

BINGO! ;)

A PR1 (mainpage) can beat a PR7 page with the right ingredients.

[copongcopong]

word density on your site still comes in to consideration depending on the search word used by the searcher.

checkout the Keyword density analyzer

[searchengineworld.com...]

[businessezines]

Another explanation is that the PR 3 joined a link farm. That is happening for my industry's top keyword. The top 30 sites on Google all have PR 5 and 6 except for 1 site (with PR of 3) which just broke in to the top 10 about 3 days ago. I checked it out and it has over 1,000 links pointing back to it....sure enough a link farm. I just wonder how long it will take for Google to find them out and ban or penalize the site.

[fathom]

I checked it out and it has over 1,000 links pointing back to it....sure enough a link farm. I just wonder how long it will take for Google to find them out and ban or penalize the site.

I assume -- 1,000 unrelated links.

1,000 related links would not necessarily be a link farm.

This could also just be "cross-linking" which isn't necessarily bad.

[businessezines]

Oh yeah. They are unrelated. The link title even says "link pool" right after it. Clicking on the link takes you to a page with nothing but tons and tons of links - as far as I can tell, none of them are related to our industry.

[jady]

We recently discovered a similar situation and found that our competition (pr of 5, less optimized that our PR 6 site) had great "anchor" text links out there with the keywords in it. This is SO important and all month, we have been adjusting our anchor text on our inbound links..