Google updates its meaningless PR

[virtualtraveller]

It seems the latest of Google's now irregular or late PR updates is underway and the bizarre results so far confirm how unreliable this indicator has become. Of course SEO experts have been talking about this for more than a year, here are some of my recent observations

1. Our set of travel sites (e.g. Bangkok & Thailand online guide book - 1stopbangkok.com) have gone from 5 to 4 and some to 3 over the space of the last three updates, but no change to serps or traffic luckily.

2. A new financial services site belonging to a friend (6 months old) avoided the so-called sandbox and got an immediate PR4 on the strength of about a dozen average links.

3. Measuring (as best as one can in marketleap link checker) links, there seems to be little correlation between this and SERPs. One of my sites slipped to 4th in rankings for main keyword (275 google links), replaced at 3rd by a site with about 70 links. Our links are mostly quality.

4. The introduction of fresh weekly news and blogs seems to have done little after 6 months, to help our cause.

5. Despite systematically building quality-only links into all 7 sites in the series, only the newest site seems to have made any gains in Google's link count.

6. I reported someone recently for selling links (to Google), complete with evidence of his solicitation email, yet I've seen no change to his sites's PR at this update, some have remained PR 6 despite being parked domains with little effort or change applied in the past 4 months.

I'm not stressed about PR to be honest, and just get on with developing good honest sites that others are willing to link to. It's all a bit bewildering however.

Comments?....

[incrediblehelp]

Uninstall the toolbar and life will be a lot easier for you

[Peter (IMC)]

You´re not taking into account what the competition does.

Saying that your links are mostly quality means nothing. If you drop a couple of positions and some site with less links ranks above you, then what does that mean? That he has better links? You can't conclude that just like that. Try comparing how many links they have with that specific keyword in the anchor text. There's so much more than just PR.

[bijan814]

thats true, my recently made website got a pr 3 , it has no link to it.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by bijan814

thats true, my recently made website got a pr 3 , it has no link to it.

How is that possible? Google do not show all links to a site.

I don't know if you have read the last PageRank discussion here at WPW:

Is PageRank the Primary Google Search Ranking Factor?

You find my private conclusion in this post:

Is PageRank the Primary Google Search Ranking Factor?

My conclusion:
I personally think that semantic stable IBL's that are mirrored in the green TbRank (Googles measure of the importance of a page) are more important than most of us are willing to accept.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by bijan814

thats true, my recently made website got a pr 3 , it has no link to it.

Which website would that be?