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However, despite the PR hike, I have seen no difference in either traffic or SERPS for the 30 or so keyphrases I monitor.
From what I have observed, PR chasing is now becoming secondary to links with high-traffic transference and on-topic text, (not least because these links have a much better ROI).
What matters in ranking is,
1) Title (big way)
2) Related keywords in text
3) Anchor text
4) Good content, very logical sentences
4) I can keep the rest as kinda option or secondary stuff.
Aji
and I donot think PR contributes anything else.
Are you being serious?
Ever tried getting a top slot with a PR1 site.
'fraid its a tad more complicated than you think.
PR is still a factor, but it is just one of many factors.
You get good PR , ppl will start linking to you, perception, good or bad but still a perception.
AJi
PR still counts
DaveN
We need to come above the green bar, there is much to it that the green bar, but I still I feel proud when the PR bar if almost 60% green.
try getting 100,000 page site deep crawled with a PR1 site lol
hehehe!
IMO, PR=WEALTH
PR do matter however, but there are lot other things which are thousand times more important than PR.
1) Large site crawls
2) Frequent updates
These two factors by themselves make PR pretty important for SEO.
3) Large sites which are not optimized for phrases, but optmized for theme
My bets are the PR0 site that you're seeing well ranked has a couple of good inbounds or 301s.
In some sites that I'm aware of the upward movement from 5 to 6 brought in around $200-300/day in revenue. Now, should I go to the owner of the site and tell them... forget PR, it does not matter?
It is very important for some things, and not so important for others. If the PR is obtained naturally, it's a good example of how much of an authority you are on a topic. However, if the PR is all from 2 or 3 high PR links then it really isn't a good indication, and google can tell.
It's very helpful if your site is already an authority to get a higher PR because it lends value to the deep pages of your site which also have some precedence in the SERP's because of your sites authority status.
There is nothing else that can cause your results to vary anywhere near as much.
I am not talking about comparing a PR4 to a PR6. I am talking about a range of PR0.00001 to PR10.99999. It is the one thing that you absolutely must have to rank.
Sure, the title is important, but you do not *need* to have the keyphrase in the title to rank.
Anchor test is might important too. But would anyone claim that any *individual* anchor's text can carry more weight than the single factor that is PR?
Sure if you combine all the various anchor text, it can have a tremendous impact. But even anchor text is not required to rank. And it is a lot easier to rank with that good anchor text if you have good PR. There is a reason that it is so easy to googlebomb companies like microsoft, they have a PR10, so the anchor text matters that much more.
PR *is not* what will cause you to rank for a keyword. But higher PR *does* increase the importance of anything else that you do to rank.
If you do a search for [products] you will get a list of high PR sites, with the word "products" scattered around on their pages. There are a lot of sites out there that do SEO for keyphrases that include the word "products", but what comes up tops? The Adobe Acrobat download page where it is used incidentally.
It isn't in the title, and I would bet most of the anchor text is more along the lins of "Get Acrobat Reader Here". It's in the URL and it is in found on the page. It is the PR that makes these minor (in terms of SEO value) factors so important.
However, despite the PR hike, I have seen no difference in either traffic or SERPS for the 30 or so keyphrases I monitor.
tenerifejim,
The change in PR on the toolbar is just a cosmetic thing. The actually PR changes sometime before or after the change on the toolbar. (Depends on who you talk to as to whether it's before or after.)
So, if the hike in PR changed your position in the serps - a likely case - then you wouldn't see that change at the time the PR changed on the toolbar.
Yikes, am I making any sense here? Getting up at 4am doesn't do my brain any good. ;)
I added some links to a dummy site from 2 PR6 pages. Immediately 2 days later that dummy site got almost a deep crawl.
3 days in a row that dummy site gets a total deep crawl. yippie :)
I removed the 2 links from the PR6 and about 2 days later only a single visit on the index.htm this was about it for a week and a half without any deep crawl or whatever.
After that I created the 2 links from the PR6 again and bingo. googlebot was back and deepcrawl everyday again.
So to make things short. YES PR IS IMPORTANT TO GET CRAWLED DAILY and according to me UPDATED INSTANTLY.
Well friends. I can show you sites in top ten with PR 0 and that too on very competitive keyword.
oops! can't believe this one. If this is true why does google yet have that PR indication on there toolbar?
If the PR is obtained naturally, it's a good example of how much of an authority you are on a topic.
Does PR serve authority?
And it is a lot easier to rank with that good anchor text if you have good PR.
And it is a lot easier to rank with that good anchor text if the site that links to you have good PR.
YES PR IS IMPORTANT TO GET CRAWLED DAILY and according to me UPDATED INSTANTLY.
Yes! true from the begining of 2003. still PR serve for deep crawling and to get fresh tag.
Apart from what I've summarized above, does PR serve any other purpose?
If the PR is obtained naturally, it's a good example of how much of an authority you are on a topic.
Does PR serve authority?
Clarified: If you have relatively high PR for a particular topic (in comparison to other high ranking sites) and it is obtained naturally (many links, relevant sites) it definitely helps you acheive an authority presence in that industry. I'm merely saying that it is an indicator, the PR itself is not the measure of authority.
Low pr pages rank well for the phrase they target and little else, high pr get all the other content to rank as well, which can really pick up the traffic with all the odd keyword combinations.
True. Which is why I (perhaps naively) belive that PR is important for large sites and anything designed around theme pyramids.
We're able to corelate internal PR updates with traffic changes pretty accurately, on sites which simply do not change because they're too large to change. SEO changes -- things like tweaking title, h1 etc have impacts, but the monthly impact due to changes in PR ratings of various pages (deep and home page) is absolutely evident in our stats.
I notice some of my competitors purchase pr7 and 8 spots....and boy do they pay for it.
Even though I am the one that is saying that PR is the most important factor, I also think that it is not a good idea to be obsessed with it.
Instead of worrying about getting to PR8, work on getting all the links you can. Work on you anchor text. Work on your on-page factors. Work on expanding your content, and adding synonyms.
I consider toolbar PR on the home page to be more of an ego thing than being anything of real use. You need to be concerned with always increasing your links, not what that little green bar says.
I rarely use IE (or windows) so I only end up checking what my PR is once every couple of months. I don't really miss it.
Your goal should be getting a lot of traffic that converts, not toolbar PR or a high Alexa ranking. those are just indicators.
Last 2 weeks saw me conduct the following experiment:
Didn't change any content on my daily deep crawled site.
Wrote emails and got reciprocol links back from 15 sites.
Saw my SERP positioning rocket for highly competitive phrases.
So links in (backlinks) causes your SERP's to change, and change daily.
PR is too poor an indicator of success due to it being:
1. A round figure
2. Updated every few months
PR is only really useful to the G team on a timeliness basis, as they see daily changes. The rest of us have to rely on relative SERP positioning for keywords we're tracking to measure our success.
Tenerifejim - you haven't had a response about your dmoz question. For a rough guide (in view of the aforementioned), when you're listed on the ODP directory, look at the category page you appear on. Your appearance on this page will give you a backlink boost just as any other page would (check the category page's PR number for an idea of relative value). In time (it's just recently happened for most categories), G will update it's directory from the ODP's directory. So take a look at the G directory and note what PR this category page gives you. These two alone will boost your site's SERPs (and in time when updated - your PR).
Wait long enough and all sorts of directories will be feeding off of G & ODP listing your site for free (more backlinks). You'll also find more webmasters linking to you and requesting you link back to them - as these directories are popular sources of authority sites on the category subjects. Hope this clarifies.
