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"We exchange links with those sites that have green or gray toolbar only"
Thanks to the PR shown on the Toolbar....
So in this case the problem is not PR on the toolbar. It is the trouble to avoid getting banned as a kind of 'collatheral damage'. However, there are enough cases where the toolbar PR is hurting natural linking.
However I do not agree with people not linking unless one's site is better than x amount of PR. I think there would be more relevance in a link if say you linked to a site that was a pr 4 but had your keyword in it's title. I think this would be more effective than linking to a site of pr 7,8 just cause of it's pr. People must engage the brain before the keyboard!
Happy Surfing
Skye
Isn't this the normal process.
1. Get e-mail from someone requesting a recipricol link.
2. Check PR to see if it's greater than yours.
3. If "their PR" < "your PR", then go to 3, otherwise 4.
3. Ignore the e-mail if it soesn't cut the mustard.
4. Reply and happily reciprocate if it's higher.
5. end ...
I'm not sure what value the PR on the toolbar adds to the user.
Well, gee, it tells users what sites are more highly regarded in an industry than others. Complaints about seeing the PR display have to be the least sensible things I see on this board. If it wasn't displayed it wouldn't go away. Hide your head in the sand and pretend it will go away.
The PR display is plainly helpful to users, and valuable to webmasters. if it didn't exist webmasters would do *exactly* the same sort of thing as looking at the toolbar. They would check how a site does in results. See what bad neighborhood a site may be linked to. Several things that would waste time but should be done.
Google didn't add the PR display for webmasters, but it is a huge benefit that we should be thankful for. Of course the spammers with PR0's won;t think that way, but boohoo, try not spamming instead.
No, it doesn't. It doesn't tell you whether or not the information on the page is accurate, it doesn't tell you whether the person running the site is a scam artist or not, it doesn't tell you anything save that the site has links to it. I can show you pr8 pages that are only PR8 because the PR has been manufactured and I can show you pages that are pr2 that provide information written by Ph.Ds complete with peer reviews of the info on the page. That little green bar is nothing more than a popularity indicator. On top of that you can never tell whether the little green bar is functioning properly or not.
So, I'll judge sites by the content they provide, you can judge a site's value by its PR. I was judging sites by content criteria long before Google came out with their little green bar and I've done just fine.
I had a site that was nothing more than a "coming soon" page and 20 blank nav pages that was PR7 on the index and for 10 of the interior pages. I'm sure all the visitors looked at the little green bar and decided then and there that the blank page they were staring at must be useful, after all, it was PR7.
And the DMOZ page is new! The whole point of PR is to make an *accurate* calculation. Wanting to see accurate PR on new pages is beyond unreasonable. In the past accurate PR took two months, which is not unreasonable.
And the DMOZ page is new!
um, not a new page. a very old page.
If I created an IE plug in that rated sites and it stopped working, I would certainly notify my users.
They are seeing pages that are "gg's measure of importance of this page 0/10 on pages Google never even measured (crawled)!
maybe we need more than 1 toolbar: ATW, AJ, ETC.
that might make evaluating the quality of sites easier for those that don't want to look at the page.
By the time the toolbar shows anything at all, the page has already loaded, and the "quality" or not of the website, is staring them in the face!
I say again, it adds no value to the user.
No I don't think Google added the toolbar for webmasters, nor do I think it was added for the user. Any guess as to the real reason I think it was added?
Of course, asserting otherwise makes no sense. Are you honestlyy going to pretend that you don't find the toolbar PR valuable when you browse sites on topics you are unfamiliar with? Please.
The Dmoz category was called "Puzzles". It is now called "Puzzle". Look at the backlinks for the /Browser_Based level above it and you will see that the old backlink from Puzzles shows.
It's a new page.
?
That's the point. PR is a function of votes from websites. It's one data point on quality. It's value in that it is *not* bot or algorithm judgement of quality.
Some of you guys seem to confuse what PR is.
However I do not agree with people not linking unless one's site is better than x amount of PR.
I'm with you on this one. Even if it's a low PR site, it can throw traffic your way (targetted even)... Also, what if it's a new site with a current low PR that will go up over time? Better to get on board with them now.
Usually I look at how the page is designed moreso than the PR...
i stand corrcted
Well, gee, it tells users what sites are more highly regarded in an industry than others.
The question is, though, do most typical users even know what PR is? Or how to check it? Or is it mostly used by SEO people?
Any guess as to the real reason I think it was added?
To track toolbar users' web browsing?
PR is a function of votes from websites.
PR was a function of votes from websites. But now links are not votes, they're a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded.
maybe heavily used to design new algos?
Of course, asserting otherwise makes no sense. Are you honestlyy going to pretend that you don't find the toolbar PR valuable when you browse sites on topics you are unfamiliar with?
On my toolbar, this page we are posting on is grayed out. Should I use that as some sort of indication of the quality of the content of this page?
PR is meaningless when determining the quality of a site.
i got PR0 for this page. Anyone ever get an undeserved PR10?
Well in most cases, obviously! The page is *new*. In this specific case it is a renamed DMOZ page so it isn't a good example, but normally knowing a new page is new is a valuable data point. Expecting Google to instantly be able to assign PR to a page is beyond unrealistic.
And some of you guys seem to attribute values to PR that do not exist. PR is not an indicator of quality, nor does PR indicate the value of content, PR is an indicator of popularity and with each passing day it is becoming more of an indicator of status than anything else.
Pagerank can no longer do what its creators want it to do, which is to reflect peer review citations on the web. PR works as a passive observation. When PR was given a value and that value was given an indicator the passive observation value was lost. People actively manipulate PR. It has become a commodity and the value is artificially inflated.
PR is valuable as a study of supply and demand and that's about it. I can artificially create PR value for any site I choose. Because of PR natural linking occurs only among site owners that are unaware of PR or disregard it. PR is disproportionately spread among sites that are owned by people that know how to manipulate its value. If you are actively seeking high PR links you are one of those people that contribute to PR's failings. You are part of the problem. Every time someone refuses to link to a site solely because the site has a low PR they are responsible for contributing to the inaccuracy of PR.
You can twist it any way you like, but PR is no longer a reflection of natural voting by link or citation. PR is a streetwalker and anyone with a few bucks can own her.
The importance of PR is totally misjudged. It is funny to see what is going on after Google is giving the linking pages a PR0. Who still wants to link to who? It is safe to link to a site with PR7, but all of a sudden their links page has no PR. So what do you get back? hahahaha
It is time to create some valuable links. Add your links to your normal content pages. (Or add content to your linking page..) That is where the users look. Does anyone know how many users are reading those meters long links pages? I guess only webmasters check it out.
What is the PR of this page? Are my competitors already on this page? Will I have a good chance that they link back? Is there an 'add-link-form'?
"We exchange links with those sites that have green or gray toolbar only"
That web site is possibly exchanging with a banned site. I am absolutely sure that prior to this Google dance that banned sites have the same gray bar as sites not yet ranked.
Dave.
I thought this was why results were shown in on ordered list.
PR is only an overall importance indicator, independent of search terms, themes, etc. It has nothing to do with relevance, only realtive importance outside of subject.
I agree that it was a mistake to ever show it, but I'm sure it has helped the Google Toolbar get installed and stay installed with a huge number of people.
Huh? C'mon that is obviously not true. Get realistic here. Results are from an algorithm that ranks sites based on many criteria, and certainly not from how highly regarded a site is. That is one criteria.
Google is built on a foundation of pagerank, and that is why they are the preeminent search engine and have been for some time. People with spam sites and newbies who WANT IT ALL NOW like five year olds just hate that authority has mattered, and does matter. It's not the only thing, but it is one of the best things.
And again, it is simply pitiful webmastering if you don't understand that you don't need the toolbar to come to the same conclusions as what the PR bar shows. You can check serps, amount of links, whois data for a site and plenty more. Are people going to whine about that too?
PR exists. It is a good thing that made Google a great thing. Whether you can see it or not on the toolbar is completely irrelevant. Advocating this lame "see no evil" idea is laughable. Close your eyes if you don't want to see. Good webmasters will know what it is even if it isn't displayed.
