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Being a webmaster, I knew how to determine which sites linked to it etc., but I'm sure the average user is not aware of such tools, and would certainly fall for the trap under the impression that high PR is a positive indicator.
While PR simply increases with the number of "votes" for a site, no way does it certify the said votes being positive or negative!
They shouldn't do it - text would be sufficient. Why drive traffic there?
TJ
If Joe User is not aware of the link: tool, they may also be oblivious to the PR and so would not choose this company based on PR.
Bizarre case. A link to your site is counted as a vote FOR your site, even if the link text says "This company is S**T".
Fair comment - but the company would still be at the top of the list, this will influence the user.
Hey, vmaster! Was this the top site in the SERPS?
A better indication is (sorry for the specific, but its quite generic) searching for "logo". Comparing page content with backlinks alt tags gives a clue that Google should look at page content a little more.
I am with trillianjedi here, most webmasters dont know what they are doing linking to them.
However, it's a rare situation.
If Joe User is not aware of the link: tool, they may also be oblivious to the PR and so would not choose this company based on PR.
Not if they have the Google Toolbar installed - google even describes it: "Google's estimate of the Importance of this Page"!
But this also has the "Page Info" button where you can look for "Backward Links". But sure, the Toolbar can be misleading and we all know it. Do many Joe Users use the toolbar, though?
"How do you expect a search engine to know about a "vote" beeing negative?"
Time for those smileys to have an effect...:) :(
the average user is not aware of such tools, and would certainly fall for the trap under the impression that high PR is a positive indicator
The following on Google's Fun & Facts [google.com]
More than 1 million users from all over the world downloaded the Google Toolbar in the three months after it was launched; the millionth person was from the Ukraine.
Which means more than 1 million SEOs in three month's time downloaded the toolbar and the millionth SEO was from Ukraine. Remmber the one who optimized that site, which sells sailing yachts
Also as Google's Technology Page [google.com]:
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
Which means, PageRank is a measure of quality of a site. (*/10) Also ever tried to read the Alt text which shows up on mouse over of the PageRank field on the toolbar?
IMHO, what trap vmaster faced - many innocent people may have already fallen for it, the ones who have download the toolbar..millions of them. I totally agree with vmaster.
Dave
"Important, high-quality sites"
A poor quality company can employ a webmaster to make a high quality site. A bit of SEO can get the site a high PR and good ranking. The web site is just packaging. If you dig a bit deeper as vmaster did, you may find the truth.
The word Important is misleading. It can be Important for all the wrong reasons. One could say that both Churchill and Hitler are important in world history. On the web if someone refers to a bad web site or bad company and gives it a link they are (maybe without knowing) making it more important. However, they don't change the Quality. A site can be important but low quality, or it can hide a low quality service.
it is difficult for an engine to distinguish between a positive and a negative vote
When its difficult either step into in when your 100% sure that it won't cause any errors or don't step into it at all...but this is simply misleading!
I am stepping out of this thread. Sweet dreams everyone!
Is there any way to instruct Google, or indeed other search engines, to ignore some content (or links) within a page?
A <NOSEARCH>,</NOSEARCH> tag pair would seem to be a simple solution. Surely, someone has thought of this already.
Anyone know the answer?
Kaled.
I tried to do this myself for movie reviews (Google Blogoscoped MovieBot), using the Google Web API, however it didn't work at all. (I'd need a fuzzy OR best-of keyword intersection to make it work better, but Google doesn't support that currently.)
Unless they already do this, which I don't think, PR is indeed only the importance, not the quality of a page.
When I'm doing lists of certain bad pages I try not to link to them, but only show the URL as text. E.g. when talking about Spam sites. I wouldn't want to be part of that neighborhood. However I'd admit it is some sort of disservice to a reader of my own page, because they might want to see the Spam site themselves in the context of whatever I report on, and have to copy & paste the link now. (The lesser evil tho for me.)
I think especially blogs do a lot of "negative" voting. And yet, this will only push the site up in Google and DayPop. E.g. once I was slighly annoyed by a misleading site turning up #1 in Google. How would I talk about this in my blog without linking to the site again, thus manifesting its position even more?
The Hitler analogy, well Hitler is important in history, so if someone would research "famous evil person", it would only make sense for him to pop up somewhere on top. But if someone is searching for some kind of recent service, say website hosting, and a certain company is really really bad, surely web people would talk about it a lot, linking a lot, and pushing its PR higher. Might be there's currently no alternative/ solution to this problem though, nothing short of getting rid of PR which overall would be worse.
People still retain responsibility for doing their own homework before making a commitment to purchase. Even the US Justice system understand this...hence the phrase "let the buyer beware."
It is well established that many consumers now use the Web as a valuable source of information (research) prior to buying goods and services. We can think of those consumer as smart consumers...
But when it comes to purchasing, it has always been the case that some will do their homework, and some won't.
Even the US Justice system understand this...hence the phrase "let the buyer beware."
Actually, that phrase eminates from Europe - and the latin maxim 'caveat emptor' - not from the US Justice System...
Don't worry, I'm just being faceitious because it's a Wednesday. I don't like Wednesdays.
Er, back to topic. Oh yes - apart from the origin of the phrase I completely agree - it's buyer beware. Google are not affiliated with any of these sites.
I seriously doubt that many internet customers actually use the google toolbar as a means of vetting a commercial site. But if they do, and word gets out that the PR toolbar is duff, then hooray let it RIP.
TJ
PR is a factor in ranking, so is relevance as measured by terms on the page, and incoming link text. Again this does not measure quality.
Google makes it clear what toolbar PR is meant to measure in one or two sentences.
And im pretty sure the perception of most surfers in that rankings are a function of relevance, and not quality
Actually, that phrase eminates from Europe - and the latin maxim 'caveat emptor' - not from the US Justice System...
BTW, where's Europe? ;-)
But..... since we're splitting hairs (lol):-
all I said was that the US system understands this...
Actually, you said ".....*hence* the expression".
But don't worry I'm just kidding around. It really is not that important to me!
TJ
(just to your East)
I was advocating abt how PR helps in E-branding!.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Coming back to the topic, yes it's fair to say it's very likely that it could be abused or it could go wrong.
It helps Google rank in SERPS,(i.e the measure of importance of the page come from.)
It's not about Quality of the product,the quality of product can be best judged by it's usage not by seeing who reffered it.PR is only a refference factor, now how many of us buy things purely on referrence factor alone ,not many I belive.
With Regards
Aravind
True True True, but read what Google says :
"Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank"
Inferring that Important = High Quality. They say that a page with a high PageRank is high quality.
I think everyone posting on this thread agrees that PR is a measure of importance and popularity, but not always of quality. There's a lot of dross out there with high PR and I know some people who WILL look at 2 pages, one with PR 6 one with PR 4 and say "Oh this one is more important" and may be more likely to believe what is on that page...
I'm not sure how many of those who downloaded it, uninstalled it when they realsied Google can track your web movements if you install it, but I would guess a fair few - certainly the black hatters.
So how many web surfers (as opposed to webmasters/SEOs) really use the tool bar? As a percentage of surfers I'd think it's a very low percentage.
Which means for a very high percentage PR is irrelevant, What ranks 1,2 and 3 of the SERPS is the overriding "popularity" measure for Mr & Mrs Joe Surfer.
So many here harp on about the good and bad about PR, but in the overall scheme of things - who cares.
I can think of quite a few search terms where a PR7 site ranks #1 and much higher up the SERPS than a PR9 site. If I'm running the PR7 site do you think I care about PR - not on your life. I care about being #1
