Page Rank Snobbery - The Beast Never Rests
Author: Dan21 Oct
This is going to be a bit of a rant. It’ll be good though. Honest.
It’s been a while since I cared about page rank. One of my earliest posts on PowerDosh was about how page rank (PR for short) doesn’t matter. I’ve since found DoshDosh’s excellent discussion of why it doesn’t matter too. However, some people will just not let it go.
It all started when I tried to find some link exchanges. You know that I currently have (among other sites) EnviroGadget.com. I’ve been trying to exchange links with other gadget blogs to get some more exposure to the gadget niche, rather than just the eco niche. My budget is still very small as I’m trying to build up the portfolio from as little as possible, so I’m doing lots of guest posts and link exchanges.
So I get a reply, and a chap has a PR3 gadget blog, and asks me what my site is. I send him the URL, and he replies:
“As you website is pr2, I can link your website from my PR2 site anothersiteofhis.com”
So basically because EnviroGadget is currently a PR2, and his is a PR3, he will only link to mine from another PR2 site!!
Admittedly this was on the Digital Point Forums, which seems to be the home of beginners, not the more experienced of individuals. Something I’ve been noticing as I’ve got more experienced.
Here are a few reasons why his logic is short-sighted (in my humble opinion):
- Page rank does not encompass anything to do with traffic
- Page rank does not encapsulate the current number or quality of backlinks to the site in question (because page rank is a historical digested snapshot at best).
- Page rank does not measure the quality of a site. Quality is subjective, exactly why page rank will never encapsulate site quality.
- Page rank does not encapsulate the growth rate of a site
Admittedly, there’s no easy way to find out the traffic or growth rate of EnviroGadget without some information from me. However, I would have happily provided it if asked. For example, take a look at the RSS feed readers for EnviroGadget for the last few months (currently at 47 readers per day).
That graph is pretty much linear, or actually slightly exponential if you see there’s a very subtle upwards curve from left to right. So had he “invested” in a link exchange with me, it could have provided some nice link juice in the longer term. But no, the short-sightedness got the better of him.
On a slightly related note, this answer was beautiful. It was in response to my answer that the internal pages of EnviroGadget have no page rank.
“Sorry mate I need page rank.”
There still seems to be an obsession with page rank, and it will never go away. Page rank seems to attract the link sellers. As a result, their income will always be capped at the number of links they can sell. They also run the risk of losing any page rank they have, and therefore losing their income!
Oh well, my words fall on deaf ears on those forums.
- Filed under: Debate
- Tags: Digital Point, google pr, page rank, page rank snobbery, pr
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13 Responses for "Page Rank Snobbery - The Beast Never Rests"
IMO the people that care about PR are the ones with PR sites.
No one else cares.
Yep, I completely agree Calum. And people who sell links based on PR too.
I understand that some folks need PR to help sell their products, but hey, I’m just having fun blogging and reading other peoples blogs. To me, that’s what blogging is all about!
even if they don’t link to you, they are now at least aware of your site and may add you to their list of feeds and maybe even link to one of your posts.
Possibly Jeff. However, if someone is obsessed with PR, it’s likely they’re going to be obsessed with their own site and less interested in networking or building up relationships with other websites.
i.e. they’re focused on doing it for the money, not for the readers of their site.
I have to admit I would like to have a higher PR for my site, who wouldn’t? But, when I link to other sites it’s becuase I think the site will be of interest to readers, not because of anything to do with PR or link exchanges.
Personally, I put what little spare time I do have into building up my websites content rather than chasing link exchanges.
Well, this post made me feel a bit better about my blog. It’s growing slowely, . . . but surely. Screw PR!
I’m glad I could help adjust your perspective Stanley. Focus on your customer, and deliver good service. You should always succeed then.
I do agree with your points, about PR not being an indicator of traffic, and that PR should not be the main focus. However, I do believe that PR is still relevant in some aspects. The one main aspect I think PR is relevant, is when you are trying to scout out your competition in the SERP’s. When you are targeting a keyword… by knowing the top 10’s page ranks, you are able to see what kind of target you need to achieve the top 10 for those keywords.
Till then,
Jean
Although I don’t completely agree with your main point Jean, you do make another great point… namely that PR should be used as one of many measurements of the popularity of a website. PR should never be considered as the sole measurement of a website’s success.
Hello,
PR is just an indication of how well your site is received on the internet, which may possibly (depending on who you talk to) give you a higher position on the search engine rankings.
Traffic to your site will depend on a number of factors; how easy is your site found by people, how much in demand is your service/ product, etc, etc…
HI,
However I agree with your post, but I still will say that page rank doesn’t means the business, There are numbers of sites whose PR are high but they have business less than the business with low PR.
The company with higher page rank may get high business, but it is not that the company with low page rank may get low business.
Marble Host, nope I disagree with you completely.
PR is merely a measure of sites linking back to you, particularly based on what PR they have. PR is unlikely to have anything to do with how much business you get.
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