PR6 Website : Strange But True

[Blackicicle]

Well actually its not strange, I just used the word strange to draw you in. But not that you're here and Im forgiven I guess that we can get on with it.

The site is www.map4travel.com a site of PR 6. Now on the surface everything may look normal but now google the site for links: Check Links

...Ahhh there is it, Pretty much ALL links to the site are from within. Not a single High PR site is linking to them, yet they are a PR6.

This, IMVHO teaches us a very important lesson, (yes it may take longer if done this way BUT...) you really don't need any expernal site to link to your site in order to raise the PR.

Of course I don't know if the Value Google places on each vote is less because the link comes from the same domain, but AFAIK they don't.

So no, Im not saying, to stop Rep. Linking, or any of the tried and true methods that we've all come to know and love, but, maybe we could all spend some more time developing the layout and design of our sites, and thus improving out PR.

By the way the above mentioned site has over 3000 inner links... Of course we would need to come up with CONTENT for those 3k pages but that's a different story.

So tell be what you think!

[adore]

1)'Link:' query is not relevant which means you don't see all IBL's in these results
2)If you don't have external links, you won't exist in the ranks (at least for a long enough time to achieve high PR)

[cbp]

I can find >70 external links to the site with several from DMOZ - that would easy account for the PR6

CBP

[fathom]

Originally Posted by blackicicle

Now on the surface everything may look normal

Yup - now if you really want to test how accurate the "no income link theory" is ask for those links that cbp found (and I did to) to be removed...

I guarantee you will be out of Google and "grey bar"... but like you said > a quick look is often deceiving.

[matauri]

You can get a PR without external links. I got PR3 on one site (after only a month or so) with only one submission to Google, but with a good network of internal links.

Yet other sites that have many external links I cant get past PR4-5. One site in particular has lots of external links (from PR3-6 sites), but after 5 weeks of constantly being spidered by Google, still has PR0.

I still think PR is a game we are letting ourselves be played, and that there are more important avenues to pursue.

[greeneagle]

I show total of 8100+, everything from Alexa to Zapmeta, Zeal and regional directories. That site has apparently had a pretty extensive Site Linking SEO campaign.

Ken

[fathom]

Originally Posted by matauri

You can get a PR without external links. I got PR3 on one site (after only a month or so) with only one submission to Google, but with a good network of internal links.

Yet other sites that have many external links I cant get past PR4-5. One site in particular has lots of external links (from PR3-6 sites), but after 5 weeks of constantly being spidered by Google, still has PR0.

I still think PR is a game we are letting ourselves be played, and that there are more important avenues to pursue.

While google will not stop you from listing and will also take a guessament as to what your PR might be - if you get no links (votes) you will not stay in Google for long... and if you're not in Google... no PageRank!

[matauri]

While google will not stop you from listing and will also take a guessament as to what your PR might be - if you get no links (votes) you will not stay in Google for long... and if you're not in Google... no PageRank!

That guestimate has lasted over a year though Fathom. It has maintained a PR3 for all that time, with internal links. Some of the internal links have a couple external links (but only a couple) and yet nearly all the internal links also carry a PR3-4.

I've been trying to play this google PR game for a while now, and can still make no sense from it. IMO they see a link as a link, whether it is internal or external. If you can make sense of it I would love to know.

Compare:
http://activnet.org - PR3, internal links apart from a submission to google, altavista & a couple of forum post links like this one (received PR3 after 4weeks & has maintained it for over a year)
http://attitude-emedia.com - PR4.. 'many' external links, not a huge amount of internal links, but many forum signature & post links, including Dmoz & Yahoo directories (recieved PR5 within 4 weeks, fluctuated between PR4-5 for past 6 months)

ActivNet has to have have the power of the internal links from what I can see.

[cbp]

There are several external links:
http://www.hotbot.com/default.asp?pr...rchbox&tab=web

to http://activnet.org/

CBP

[matauri]

Thats what I was referring to, of the 12 listed most are linking to internal links, not the main page index page. Two of them are recent offshoots to their own domains. The main index page only has a couple, mainly from forum posts. However, the PR3 was maintained before the external links that are now their own domains, and before the forum posts (they were all within last 6 months or so). So Google must have been gestimating for a good 6 months, before/and if it picked up the offshoot domains as links.

[Mel]

PR as originally conceived and published makes no distinction between internal and external links, and in fact it considers nothing but pages, nothing about domains.

There is lots of speculation that Google may have changed the PR equation since inception but on balance the evidence would not seem to support this.

PageRank is not the property of Google, it is owned by Stanford University, who have licensed it to Google in perpetuity, but with Googles exclusivity expiring in 2006. That being the case I doubt if Google have the right to modifications, and that might explain google getting patents to at least two schemes which could replace PageRank, LocalRank and TSPR(Topic Specific Page Rank. This fact should also help us to understand that Google have not spent millions developing PR, it was developed by two students from Stanford University, who later founded Google.

I agree with Matauri that internal pages by them selves can generate PR, but without external links the site will not stay in Googles index.

[fathom]

Originally Posted by matauri

Thats what I was referring to, of the 12 listed most are linking to internal links, not the main page index page. Two of them are recent offshoots to their own domains. The main index page only has a couple, mainly from forum posts. However, the PR3 was maintained before the external links that are now their own domains, and before the forum posts (they were all within last 6 months or so). So Google must have been gestimating for a good 6 months, before/and if it picked up the offshoot domains as links.

External is external and need not be to mainpage. It's just "usual" for the mainpage to gain links - but as long as Googlebot can get into a website "from somewhere else you stay in, and PageRank then propagates".

Additionally, I have orphan pages that use to be linked to main site pages, they still have a residual PageRank even though haven't been linked in 6 months from anything. While not what they were PR6 (now PR2) Google's memory is quite good... but believe it's just because the site itself in still in Google.

[matauri]

Therefore if you have one plus internal pages that has at least one external link to a decent PR, you can generate your own PR if you have a large site like mine with a good network of links. Then I should be able to generate that internal PR to my other external sites (which I havent done yet).

So for large sites a link is a link, no matter if its internal or external, as long as there are external ones in there somewhere.

Reminds me of that old computer game Snake ;-)