Does PR Sculpting Work?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by activeco

But what surprised me the most is the clear lack of understanding of basics of PR distribution, among other things.
While less knowledge about some other important internet mechanisms (such as networking protocols, in the first place) can be understood, having in mind that most SEO's are actually mainly (web)designers slightly traversing into the underground world of networks, it is a bit shocking that people specialized in pleasing search engines actually do not know the most fundamental facts of Google's PR calculation.

I was also surprised by this.

[Peter (IMC)]

And, you don't get to keep and count the PR that you have to pass to others; i.e., you don't get to vote for yourself.

You do get to vote for yourself, but not through links themselves. More pages in your site will add PR to your site. (but 10 pages more isn't going to make much diference. This difference is only noticable when comparing sites with few pages to sites with tens of thousands of pages.)

PR sculpting is possible with nofollow, (but it's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned.) I agree with the way Janeth describes how PR works. Every page has a single PR point (not toolbar PR point but real PR point) to start with (before calculating the distribution of PR) and thus the total amount of PR available in Google's index is at most the number of pages they have indexed. Then after an iterative process the distribution of PR through links is determined.

So that answers the question: "But, how is the initial value created?"


There is no "proof" needed to determine wether or not PR sculpting with the nofollow works or not. It does work because if you deny a link to pass PR then the distribution will be different. The more important question is whether or not this has any significant effect on positions and traffic to your website. In my opinion it has very little effect simply because PR is just one of the many ranking factors and what's more important, the amount of PR you can channel away from certain pages to other pages is so small that you´re talking about a change in real PR of less than a %.

In case you have a really big site of tens of thousands of pages (which is actually what Greg Boser is talking about, Webnauts) then you can significantly sculpt PR in the site. And I can imagine that in those specific cases it can have a positive effect on positions for some keywords. But I have to say that I suspect that there is also a negative effect on the number of keywords the site is found for which in turn means less traffic to the site. Which brings me back to my original point that using nofollow to sculpt PR is a waste of time.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

In case you have a really big site of tens of thousands of pages (which is actually what Greg Boser is talking about, Webnauts) then you can significantly sculpt PR in the site. And I can imagine that in those specific cases it can have a positive effect on positions for some keywords. But I have to say that I suspect that there is also a negative effect on the number of keywords the site is found for which in turn means less traffic to the site.

What do you mean by that?
I don't see any relationship with nofollow and number of keywords on the page.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by activeco

What do you mean by that?
I don't see any relationship with nofollow and number of keywords on the page.

He's not talking about the number of keywords on a page. He's talking about a site with over 10,000 pages and that sculpting PR would have an affect on getting your site to rank. If it was that big.

But then went on to say that your efforts would be better spent on something else.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by janeth

He's not talking about the number of keywords on a page. He's talking about a site with over 10,000 pages and that sculpting PR would have an affect on getting your site to rank. If it was that big.

Well OK, he's talking about number of keywords sitewide.

But I have to say that I suspect that there is also a negative effect on the number of keywords the site is found for which in turn means less traffic to the site.

I see the logic, but I can't agree.
The whole idea is to transfer the traffic to the more important pages.
It doesn't matter if you lose 1,000 visitors coming to your 'privacy' page with a keyword "IP address", when you get another 1,000 going to your shopping cart page with a keyword "buy <product> now".

[janeth]

Originally Posted by activeco

I see the logic, but I can't agree.
The whole idea is to transfer the traffic to the more important pages.
It doesn't matter if you lose 1,000 visitors coming to your 'privacy' page with a keyword "IP address", when you get another 1,000 going to your shopping cart page with a keyword "buy <product> now".

Not traffic. Your site visitor can go anywhere they want on the site. What we would be doing is controlling where Google would put the internal ranking into the site.

Another words if I have a web design site and fix the site so all my internal power is moved to one page that talks about custom website design. Then I rank #1 for custom website design but loose all the ranking for the rest of the site, was it worth loosing all my ranking power to the other pages?

And what will the affect of all those pages linking back to my home page be now that I am not longer linking to them?

Maybe my home page no longer ranks for web designers, which is more important than custom website designs.

And now that Google is no longer visiting my privacy page or contact me page is it possible that they could no longer she me as a real business and I could drop in rankings because of this?

Not saying not to use it but would have to wonder if it was worth it in the long run.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by janeth

Not traffic. Your site visitor can go anywhere they want on the site. What we would be doing is controlling where Google would put the internal ranking into the site.

Not exactly. In most cases your internal links have the same (or arguably slightly less) weight as the external links. In case of lot of internal links one can be able to spread them in the best possible way and indeed help the PR of the important pages.

Another words if I have a web design site and fix the site so all my internal power is moved to one page that talks about custom website design. Then I rank #1 for custom website design but loose all the ranking for the rest of the site, was it worth loosing all my ranking power to the other pages?

True, so you won't do that obviously.

And what will the affect of all those pages linking back to my home page be now that I am not longer linking to them?

Why would you do that? You have to link properly ALL the pages.
The key is how many times and from what places.

And now that Google is no longer visiting my privacy page or contact me page is it possible that they could no longer she me as a real business and I could drop in rankings because of this?

See above.

[janeth]

You could get the same affect out of building a nice looking site with flash navigation or java and then linking to your main pages using text links inside your copy.

It would be a lot of work and would take some thanking but the result would be better in the long run. Each link would be surrounded by text. Then you could get links to all the internal pages from outside sites.

You could even go to free hosting sites build a site about a certain topic, submit that site to the directories and then link the new site you just built back to the internal pages on your main site.

Every internal page would have links coming from outside sites and would be linking to your main pages through the text links on those pages.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by janeth

You could get the same affect out of building a nice looking site with flash navigation or java and then linking to your main pages using text links inside your copy.

Sure, there are many ways for the proper internal link design.
But, what is good with rel=nofollow (among other things) is that you can use it on old, existing sites and very easy earn some points.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by activeco

Sure, there are many ways for the proper internal link design.
But, what is good with rel=nofollow (among other things) is that you can use it on old, existing sites and very easy earn some points.

Yes and I guess it would be easy to change back if you decided not to use it.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by activeco

What do you mean by that?
I don't see any relationship with nofollow and number of keywords on the page.

I wasn't talking about the number of keywords on the page. SEO has the effect that the number of keyword phrases a site is found for, increases. There are so many variations on a basic keyword phrase and longer keyword phrases that they are giving a site many more visitors than those few main keywords you put in your title and other places.

When you nofollow a bunch of pages and also noindex them as described by Greg Boser then you´re going to lose a whole bunch of reasons to get positions for those types of keyword phrases. I can imagine that this has a negative effect on the total number of visitors.

Generaly when we optimize a site the number of keywords the site is found for goes up 10 times. (like being found for 400 different keyword phrases per month before optimization to like 4000 different keyword phrases after optimization.) The nofollow (the way Greg Boser suggests to do in big sites) may have as a result that the total number of visitors goes down.

The idea that the more important pages have to get more visitors by sculpting PR using nofollow doesn't make that much sense to me. You can argue that a contact page is less important, but it won't be found that often anyway.

It doesn't matter if you lose 1,000 visitors coming to your 'privacy' page with a keyword "IP address", when you get another 1,000 going to your shopping cart page with a keyword "buy <product> now".

Here you are assuming that reducing the PR of that privacy page will make those positions for "ip address" dissapear and that by the added PR to those product pages they will gain positions. In my oppinion that's a wrong assumption. Google doesn't work in that way. What's needed is a good internal link structure to get those pages to rank higher. Anchor texts of internal links for example have a much greater effect so it's better to focus on that than to focus on nofollowing links with hardly any effect.

Again, in huge sites there may be some effect, but then you'd be targeting higher level category pages and reduce the PR of the deeper content pages (That's Greg Boser's suggestion again). And in most comercial sites that would mean reducing the PR of your product pages. Doesn't seem that smart to do. Perhaps sites like article websites could benefit from something like this but for most sites, PR sculpting is a big waste of time.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

When you nofollow a bunch of pages and also noindex them as described by Greg Boser then you´re going to lose a whole bunch of reasons to get positions for those types of keyword phrases. I can imagine that this has a negative effect on the total number of visitors.

Of course. Suggesting noidex-ing white-hat regular pages is at least irresponsible. I don't advocate that.

The idea that the more important pages have to get more visitors by sculpting PR using nofollow doesn't make that much sense to me. You can argue that a contact page is less important, but it won't be found that often anyway.
...
Here you are assuming that reducing the PR of that privacy page will make those positions for "ip address" dissapear and that by the added PR to those product pages they will gain positions. In my oppinion that's a wrong assumption.

Added PR does gain positions. It's hard to find anyone today disagreeing with that.
The simple fact (again) is that the distribution of the PR from a particular page depends on # of receiving links so instead of: "PR juice per link = Transfering PR / X links" you have "PR juice per link = Transfering PR / (X-#nofollow's)".
The PR gain can be enough/substantial to boost important pages in serps and produce more traffic to those pages.
The traffic to insignificant pages is reduced but they are still there, less linked, indexed, having the same content.

[incrediblehelp]

Activeco have a gander:

Why your nofollow testing sucks - SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog

[janeth]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Activeco have a gander:

Why your nofollow testing sucks - SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog

A really long article to say he does not believe it was properly tested.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by janeth

A really long article to say he does not believe it was properly tested.

And that it is basically impossible to properly test because external influences cannot be eliminated. So everyone who says it works can't prove it and everyone who says it doesn't work can't prove it because neither can conduct a "test" in a "sterile" environment.

Dave

[activeco]

Originally Posted by janeth

A really long article to say he does not believe it was properly tested.

Very true, neat and short statement. Exactly what one misses on his blog. I think his articles were written mainly for search engines.
The guy is backpedalling in a way from his previous post where he insulted everyone not agreeing with his beliefs.
The arguments were ranging from 'stupid search engine optimizers and total morons' to the more sophisticated ones such as 'incompetent asses and idiots'.

This time his article was more moderate with the simple heading "Why your nofollow testing sucks", where he took a long journey to say that he still didn't believe it.

Interestingly, in another article he states the following: "A good Web site only needs its own internal linkage to help most pages rank for something useful. A bad Web site relies on external links."

Let's play fair here; I understand it was in another context. But he should be aware that the statement means more than he originally thought.

Anyway I don't understand why so much dust around this question.
There is nothing new here, good internal linking was always a kind of "artistic knowledge", with or without rel='nofollow'.
You can dissipate your PR and link extensively all around or you can link smart.
It's your choice.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by activeco

Anyway I don't understand why so much dust around this question.
There is nothing new here, good internal linking was always a kind of "artistic knowledge", with or without rel='nofollow'.
You can dissipate your PR and link extensively all around or you can link smart.
It's your choice.

It is an old trick with a new name and a new tool. Guess there has not been a whole lot to talk about in the world of SEO so they decided to make a big deal about an old trick.