Google Pagerank, and calculating it beyond an Integer....

Thoughts on ways to approximate more exact PR values..

[DesignExplosion]

When trying to increase your PageRank, it can get tiresome checking your Pagerank for months and months waiting for it to move up a point.

The only other thing that I've thought of over the years, is non-alphabetical, and seemingly "random" way that google lists each website within a category in the Google Directory.

It is very well known that Google uses DMOZ for all of its *Directory* listings; so every category you see in DMOZ, is organized in the exact same way as the Google Directory. Every website listed in DMOZ, is also in Google's.

But there is one glaring difference, DMOZ is listed in a standard alphabetical format & Google isnt... plus the fact that each pages' PAGERANK is displayed next to each listing.

These listing are grouped into each integer value,
ex. All websites with a PR of 7 will all listed at the top, then all the PR6 sites-->PR5-->PR4....

So lets say my site had a Pagerank of 6, and there are 100 websites in that category with a PR6. I've found it to be pretty reliable that as your website's popularity increases... so does its placement in the Directory.

Would it be safe to say then that if I were only analyzing those 100(~99) websites that are in the same category as me, with the same pagerank, that you could actually accurately judge your pagerank by how high/low your site appears within its category/rank?

Every experiment that I have conducted to test this, came out verifying that you can watch just how close your website is to the next level... PR6-->PR7.

If you don't completely agree with me here, what are some other factors that you think would play a role here?

I've played around with these sorts of experiments on rankings, some of which have become very complex, so I'd love to hear all of your ideas on this subject of understanding what makes the system tick.

This is my first post here, so I look forward to gaining as much insight as possible in my time at WebmasterWorld!

Thanks again,
Bryant Smith

[kaled]

Page rank is not critical. Given that a PR 6 page can easily beat a PR 7 page based on off-page or on-page factors, time might be better spent analysing other parts of the algo.

Kaled.

[geebee2]

Well I'd say it is an interesting idea, and it does give you some feedback on whether your PR is going up or down relative to competitors.

Overall I doubt the practical use. I think the best you can do is work on all the well known ways to improve your site and links to it, and hope for the best.

I know what you mean though - you work your socks off adding content, links etc. for a few of months, and it's still a 5! So if it boosts your morale, all well and good.

[diamondgrl]

I think this is a very interesting observation.

However, does Google change it's directory dynamically or is it a static dump from a database that doesn't change often? Since they are notoriously bad about reloading new DMOZ entries, it would seem it would be easiest for them simply to keep their directory in a static form. Therefore, these pages would not reflect new PR anytime soon.

There is another, later thread in this forum titled "Why no pagerank in the Google Directory?" The author is complaining about something that might be caused by a static directory.