PR question

[Janet]

Hope you don't mind a question from a newbie

What does your website's PR# represent? Is a higher number better than a lower #? I always see PR0-PR6, are these all the levels?

I checked out my website and it came back as PR3. Is that good, what does it mean?

Thanks!

[John Scott]

http://www.google.com/technology/

PR = PageRank

The more PageRank, the more links that page has. Every web page starts out at zero, and if you get millions of link, like Google, you may end up with PageRank 10.

[Marketing Guy]

PR (PageRank) is Googles method of ranking a site. However the PR displayed on the Google Toolbar doesn't accurately reflect the actual PR Google assigns to a site, so I wouldn't place too much importance on it.

Roughly speaking it's a relfecting on the inbound links your site has, although some sites "pass" more PR value than others (some don't pass any at all).

A PR3 is good for a new site - I'd say around a PR5 was average for a year old site - PR6 is good for a SEO'd site - PR7+ and you are venturing into big site territory. Not a hard and fast rule of course, but generally bigger sites attract more links, so they have a larger PR.

Links affect your ranking - PR is a reflection of the quantity / quality of links you have, but it doesn't affect your site's ability to rank directly (an indicator more than a factor).

Toolbar PR updates roughly every 3 months (it varies) - a PR0 may mean a site is new and therefore it's PR hasn't been updated yet, but it also could mean that a site has been banned from Google. I'd be concerned if a site stayed at PR0 for a year for example, but a few months after launch is normal (varies depending on when Google updates the PR).

Have a look at other site's PR for a better idea of where your site should be. MSN is 9, Google is 10, BBC is 9 for example. Most sites aren't as large and popular as these sites though so there aren't many PR9/10's.

Another thing to note is that it doesn't scale up consistently - there's no (publicly definable) threshold to move from PR3 to PR4 for example and each "jump" up tends to take a lot more links than the previous jump.

Hope this helps.

MG

[Janet]

I guess a PR3 is okay for now then. Thanks for the responses!