PR = Links : Links =?

[Perplexed]

I am on a mission to improve my PR so just for the sake of this thread I would like to discount the fact that links also bring traffic ( occasionally ) and affect your position in the serps.

Just for the criteria of PR transfer does it make any difference what form a link takes? For instance, if a site displays a logo of mine with an <a href> back to a page on my site but with no other wording, would it count for PR purposes?

[Marcia]

As long as the link can be followed it can give PR - assuming that the linking page can confer PR. I think some pages show PR but actually can't. What I'm wondering is whether if they don't will they show up in backlinks anyway.

[Perplexed]

Whoa Marcia. Some pages show PR but cannot transfer it? Would you like to elaborate on that?

[Powdork]

There is much speculation that many pages such as guestbooks, link farms and maybe others will show pr on the toolbar but the link may not actually transfer pr to the destination page.
Add to this that there is much speculation that many, many pages that show no pr on the toolbar but do pass on pr.
The latter seems to be a toolbar glitch or a possible weening of us webmasters off of toolbar pr or pr in general. This does not imply anything about the value of pr. If anything, maybe that it is important enough to blur.
The former seems to be an actual part of the algo.

[Perplexed]

So the "non passing" of pr would only ever be in relation to the page the link is on rather than to the form that the link takes.... Yes?

[sudden]

Yes, as far as I know. However, dynamic links and redirects are an issue (e.g. php or cgi links), though it seems these are counted sometimes lately. I saw some redirected links from directories show up in my backlinks, however, I am not sure if they really pass PR. Hard to tell without any fresh PR data.

[trillianjedi]

So the "non passing" of pr would only ever be in relation to the page the link is on rather than to the form that the link takes.... Yes?

If the speculation is correct then yes, exactly so.

I'm remaining on the fence until some hard evidence is seen, but I have to say I can see the logic behind it, and would not be at all surprised if google had implemented something like this.

TJ

[tribal]

"I saw some redirected links from directories show up in my backlinks, however, I am not sure if they really pass PR."

What I've been wondering for a while, is which backlinks are shown by Google and which aren't. I've whitnessed several sites losing backlinks to the extend of half they had before - while I was sure the links still exist and the linking page is still available AND indexed correctly by Google.

Maybe Google still indexes them, but just doens't show them for some reason other than punishment. We have a site linking to us with PR6, which doesn't show up in Google's backlinks, while all other pages have a lower PR and about the same to more links. If anyone can think of another explanation - please let me know :)

Perplexed: just to be sure, include an ALT-tag giving a good description of the linked site, this should be as good as normal link-text.

[Perplexed]

Thanks everybody, and good idea tribal. All I want to do is have a logo displayed on the home page of certain other sites that links back to a specific page on my site. There should not be any need for cgi or any form of fancy redirects.

[amberbaby]

it would be better to use a text link with a key phrase to link to you, that way you will not only get PR but also relevancy for that key phrase.

tribal, google only shows backlinks from pages with a PR4 and up, are you sure the page your link is on has a PR6? if so, congratulations to you, some people would pay a lot of money to have a PR6 page link to them

[HitProf]

>include an ALT-tag giving a good description of the linked site, this should be as good as normal link-text

I doubt that. To the best of my knowledge Google no longer indexes the 'alt' attribute let alone pass PR through it.

oeps - PR passes throught the link of course, I was thinking in terms of anchor text

[Marval]

amberbaby - the notion that Google only shows PR4 and up in the backlinks went away with the last update - either Ive got PR2 pages showing up in the backlinks as Ive heard many here say recently or the PR thingy is broken as Marcia suggests (although I kind of doubt these pages are anything more than a 2)

Im one of the many that also is still missing hundreds of PR5 and 6 backlinks on sites since April - haven't figured out yet why they arent showing although I do remember GG saying that they would eventually come back (of course that was 2 months ago)

[Powdork]

Marval,
See if any of your missing links have unique anchor text. if they do you can run an experiment to see if Google is still counting the link.

[Marval]

Powdork - Im trying that experiment as we speak...problem is that so many people linked to me with either one of two phrases - one being the name of the site, and the other the first two words in my title. Seems that most of the links I see missing are the ones that had the first two words in the title - and gradually over the last 4 weeks, the site has slipped from 15 to 30 to now 120 in the SERPS, although with so many Amazon pages and previously (we thought) banned sites reappearing now, and being promoted to the top of the SERPS, its kind of confusing to figure out the effect of the links.

I do play in pretty highly competitive areas, and do very little edge stuff, which in the past always was good to me in Google...but now seeing the freeforall thats going on in the rankings for my "darker-side" friends..Im going to just ride out and make a decision on requesting changes to linking text.

I have made a change to my title today, to reflect the other majority of links to my site to see whether this really is causing an effect - will report back in a few days when Google has a chance to rerank my keywords.

[Marval]

Well..that experiment just went out the window

although Im doing some checking, it looks like all internal backlinks have been removed on one site and that the missing links are back, but others are gone. Summed up its about a 20-30% drop in backlinks today.
The thing that keeps eating at me is that its almost as if the backlinks I had in Jan, Feb timeframe that went missing are all back and the others that have been there since March are all gone now?