A question of PR

[grandpa]

I've been happily watching my pages gain PR. I like to think it's due in some part to the efforts I put on those pages.

I've read the documentation on Page Ranking, and while the math is way over my head I do understand the basics of the system (I gave up engineering math decades ago).

Still, I have a simple question, maybe someone else has had the experience to give me a reply.

My index page has had a PR4 since I started my work back in August. A couple of the back pages had a PR1 or 2, most had 0.

I've seen most of my back pages move up to PR4 in the last month, so I would *think* this improvement would be reflected back to my content rich and relevant index page, moving it up past 4. Am I wrong about my understanding of PR?

I've just started adding an extra link on my back pages to the index, from the company image logo. (A hint I picked up in WW) There are already 2 links on each of the back pages to the index, and they are labeled "Home".

[Mohamed_E]

I've seen most of my back pages move up to PR4 in the last month, so I would *think* this improvement would be reflected back to my content rich and relevant index page, moving it up past 4. Am I wrong about my understanding of PR?

Three comments:

1. The phrase "content rich and relevant index page" suggests that your understanding of PR is incomplete. Content and relevancy play an enormous role in the on page factors, they have zero effect on PR, which is based on a mathematical computation of the links.

2. The PR displayed by the toolbar is an extremely crude approximation of the "true" PR used internally by Google. It uses a logarithmic scale (unknown base, assumed by many to be six or so), which means that a low PR 4 page (say one of your internal pages) can have as litlle as one sixth of the true PR of a high PR 4 page.

3. Some of us wonder how accurately the toolbar reflects true PR. In recent months it has appeared to be way off, either due to a low priority in updating it or to confuse webmasters.

[t2dman]

Google PR is spread around a site based on the sites linking structure. If every page is linked to every page, all pages will have similar PR. Links can be structured so some pages have less links to them, more PR will be available for your main pages, not spread so thin.

Non PR issues are also important. The site should have a consistant look and feel - same "top" and "bottom" on each page.

And be careful not to get Google confused. Make sure when text links point to a page, that page on the site naturally gets selected by Google for that term. I advertise businesses, and also their generic products. Where the business listings get more PR and text links, Google can pick that page for the generic product, and give it a really low serp. When I give the generic product more PR and text links, I get a far better SERP.