Why people talking so much about PR?

[SkGold]

I still can’t get it. Why in almost every thread about linking and positioning in Serps people talking about PR?

High PR means almost nothing.

• It doesn’t mean that SE trust this site.

• It could be faked easily.

• It doesn’t affect on positions in Serps.

So, why people still talking so much about PR? May be I don’t understand something?

[Ferre]

It only means something for those who sell links at their sites. Somehow the majority of seo 'professionals' live in the illusion that a high PR brings in accordingly high traffic. There's also the idea that a high PR will push sites up in the serps for competitive keywords, which, to an extent, has some grounds, but low pr sites can do just as good or better for competitive keywords because linking for the serps or linking for PR are two different things and need a different approach. To get high rankings for certain keywords one must link for the serps, which means as many as possible backlinks on authority sites, linking for PR is a matter of getting links on high pr sites and the anchor text isn't much of importance in that regard.

[SkGold]

This is exactly what I know. Thanks for confirmation.
So, generally it is a biggest myth (or may be better to say BS) that misleading people who want to get better ranking.

I really tired to explain my clients that having the link from low PR sites just as good as from high PR sites. And that the most important to have the link from the sites that have been around for a long time and have SE trust than from sites with high PR.

But it is not easy to convince some customers, because any forum you go people talking about PR.

[Marketing Guy]

Yeh clients turn up with all sorts of preconceptions - that's one of the hardest parts of client side SEO IMO. Even fairly savvy client can pick up a dodgy theory from a forum and take up a few hours of your time!

MG

[John Scott]

PR itself means very little, although it still is one factor in the ranking algorithm. But it is an indication of linkage, and SEO is all about the links.

[SkGold]

Originally Posted by John Scott

PR itself means very little, although it still is one factor in the ranking algorithm. But it is an indication of linkage, and SEO is all about the links.

What this indication is telling you if it could be easily faked?

Yes, I agree that SEO is about the links but it is about the quality contextual anchor links, not the links from some PR directories. But take a look around and what you see? PR, PR, again PR and again PR...
It is look like SEO is about PR.

[cessai]

maybe because, somehow, high PR helps them

[Sadu]

How many good websites that are older than 3 months have a PR of zero? I'll wager not that many.

How many well-linked websites have a PR lower than 3? Probably not that many either.

I'm not saying every PR6 site is awesome, but it's definitely worth a look at the other factors.

If you are buying / trading for links, PR is a quick and easy (though not accurate) way of determining value. When I'm buying a $10 link, I really don't have the time to do a detailed analysis of every aspect of the site. I'll check the PR and Alexa, do a quick once-over of the HTML to make sure there is nothing black hat going on, and then have a quick look through the backlinks in MSN to get a feel for it's link profile. That's usually about all I have time for on cheap links.

If the PR is low, and the design looks low quality, I won't usually bother with the other checks. Actually, I rate visual design much more highly on the list than PR. A good design shows the site is serious, and willing to spend time / money on building something good. A well designed site is much more likely to be around in the long term than a default theme Wordpress site.

[raugusto]

From google page:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

Yes Google page rank is yet another rank...far better thank Alexa rank (measured by the toolbar that some users have installed). It is important to Google SE positions, not yahoo or MSN!
Like other methods of measuring blog or website performance, it is not complete, but to me is by far the most important. Can you suggest another one that is better or trusted more?

Yes you can fake it, like any other methods available. But if you do Search Engine Optimization on a website, the Page Rank will increase right?

[SkGold]

Originally Posted by Sadu

If you are buying / trading for links, PR is a quick and easy (though not accurate) way of determining value.

Once again the same question that I asked John.
What PR indication may tell you if it could be easily faked?

I believe that when you looking for a links (especially to buy a link) you should not consider PR at all. If you are going to consider PR, than you need to check first is it faked or not. So why to bother at all, if it is not giving you any good for serps ranking any way?

[ninjashoes]

you mean actual pagerank or Google Toolbar pagerank?

[sitetutor]

people are lazy and like to oversimplify everything, therefor they rather use a number which may or may not mean anything than consider all the factors playing a role in ranking a site.

[AnaB]

As far as faking PR goes, it doesn't go a long way. It can easily be checked..so, PR is still a semi-useful thing.

Ana

[ninjashoes]

A directory with a PR of 5 can make some good cash from selling links, alot of people here own directories and see the value so you hear old timers talking about it, the newer people see tons of threads about PR and think its more important than it is and it all does downhill from there.

[Utexas]

It looks good when u sell the site and it indication of how many backlinks ur site has.

[sitetutor]

Originally Posted by AnaB

As far as faking PR goes, it doesn't go a long way. It can easily be checked..so, PR is still a semi-useful thing.

Ana

You´d be surprised to see just how many average webmasters can be fooled by it!

[Sadu]

PR is not easily faked on a good site.

If your site is quality, then faking PR is a risky thing to do. The risk of being spam reported is pretty high.

The sites that are faking PR are likely to fail the sniff test anyway. These sites will have poor design, RSS fed content, Adsense all over the place, and a quick check of MSN backlinks will show a rubbish link neighborhood.

You are going to think twice about paying good money for any PR6/7/8 site that fails the above criterior, regardless of whether PR is faked or not.

I think as a general rule of thumb, "Most good sites have good PR". This is definitely not the same as "Most sites with good PR are good sites". With this in mind, PR is still a useful metric.

[Kasparoff]

Every decent website must have a good PR. Especially a SEO company. Otherwise, customers can get suspicious and won't order anything. Although professionals keep saying that PR plays very little role in SEO process, not many of those who say that actually have high PR. It's not that easy to get.