Google Page Rank died November 2003 - isn't it about time we officially buried it?

Before November, Page Rank was probably the number one factor in positioning a site well in Google. In my opinion, after November 2003 it has no effect on ranking.

Any apparent rise in ranking of a site that coincides with a rise in Page Rank is simply coincidental - due to the fact that some of the links that caused the site to rise in rank also caused the Page Rank displayed on the Google Tool Bar to rise as well.

The last remaining argument of those with an interest in still keeping the myth of Page Rank alive is that having high PR will result in more frequent spidering of the site. It is not the high PR that does that it is simply the fact that the site has several links pointing at it from pages already indexed by Google. It is meaningless whether the link comes from a site with PR7 or PR2.

It now appears, that the pursuit of high PR may actually be detrimental to the health of your website. Why? because many of the tactics used to achieve high PR are precisly the tactics Google is now on the lookout for - unnatural linking patterns.

The talk in some SEO forums has been that most recent Google update of this past week resulted in the dissappearance of many sites using one method of unnatural linking - "footer spam" - where links are placed to other sites on many pages of a site. That may be the case but so far it does not seem to be widespread so penalties are probably manual and not due to a new filter.

Another method of unnatural linking that rapidly raises Page Rank is buying links on many pages of High PR sites. This too seems to be a target of Google. You pay for the links and your Page Rank rises - but not your necessarily your site rankings. If rankings do rise they seem do so for only a short period of time until Google discovers the unnatural linking pattern and takes steps to negate any benefits or penalizes.

We would all be a lot better off if we buried Page Rank in the back 40 right beside where we buried keyword repitition in meta tags all those years ago. Neither are a benefit any longer!

My two cents - what is yours?

I do agree that a high PR is more helpful to the sites listed on it than the site itself. It all depends on what the title says I think.

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National directory of real estate listings featuring San Diego Real Estate such as new homes in La Jolla

Well said Doug. Sorry for the long time between posts but things have been crazy
Anyway, linking to relevent indexed sites in a natural way will take care of the PR issue all by itself. Nothing wrong with a referral directory in my opinion as all stand to benefit, however, my feelings are that anything more than a single link back and forth will eventually put you in the crosshairs for manual review or future algorythm changes.

Also, I'd be honored to help moderate here too if you think I'm worthy

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Rich
Real Estate Websites
Search Engine Optimization

Hey Rich,

You are now a moderator for this forum

I'm happy to do it

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Rich
Real Estate Websites
Search Engine Optimization

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rich@vtws:
[B]I'm happy to do it

Hey Rich,

Congratulations on your promotion ...lol. It's been kinda quiet around here just lately, it's good to see a few more people looking in on this forum.

Thanks beachgal
Guess I better start learning about real estate websites

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Rich
Real Estate Websites
Search Engine Optimization

[This message has been edited by Rich@vtws (edited 06-30-2004).]

Google 35% of the traffic 80% of the posts go figure.

SEO years are shorter than Dog years

Ohhhh Nooo Not Rich ... LOL
Have a Happy and Safe 4th weekend!

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Web Marketing and Design Since 1995
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North Scottsdale Custom Homes

Fountain Hills Arizona Real Estate

I can atest that Doug is right. I have a website with a PR 7 which that PR was purchased and google had over 2700 pages indexed from ym website with over 2800 backlinks indexed. I had a number 4 ranking for my main key phrase and a lot of number 1 for most of my industry and city phrases.

I AM NOW NOWHERE ON THE SERPS. Google penalized my website and drop me from the serps. I feel it is in part for 2 reasons..

1. Purchased Links..most of them on the same IP block and also sold to another realtor whom I link with on the same IP block.

2. Sitewide realtor links from a link farm so to speak.

These issues I believed drop me from the serps and my seo didnt tell me this could happen. I was told google cant penalize for purchasing links..well if they cant then why would my website fall from the serps.

Of course why would they tell you..LOL as long as they are getting paid why should an seo care..you are just helping them pay their bills and believe me most that sell links dont give 2 cents about you personally or business wise..as long as they are getting PAID

So be very careful if you buy links..IMHO IT ISNT WORTH IT.

Do you have any thoughts on forum signature links? They could be considered a form of spam due to their repetitive nature, maybe?

I'm sure you are all aware by now of the disaster caused by one seo company who just got itself and all of its clients banned from Google.

The tactics...hidden image links in the footer...mutiple spammy doorway pages 5 copies per key phrase, useless to a user, and 'optimized' for a key phrase, using mouseover redirects to zap the user to the homepage as soon as they moved the mouse to try and view the page.

They also had all of their clients sites linking to each other in massive unrelated link farms.

I recently went to work for a company who had used this seo firm. They had no clue as to what was being done, or the ramifications.

They believed the guarantee, saw some positive results, didn't really believe me when I told them what could happen. They just got banned and now I am doing damage control...hard lesson. Its a shame, because the company is family owned, reputable in the community and just nice folks, trusting in a firm that had only its own interest at heart (the only gratification is the seo company got squashed by its own tactics)

Thanks for the space to rant...didn't mean to be so long-winded.

I just posted a free ebook on my own site that a Realtor buddy of mine put together, if anyone would like a copy, help yourselves: http://www.neodemesne.com/index.php#mb

Hope all had a great 4th!



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~neodemes~
Neodemesne: Your Real Estate Portal
Investors Resources
Help us help America's homeless
http://www.greatnationalcamera.com for Express property photo processing.

I personally do not think links in signatures of forum posts are considered spam although it may be that after a certain number of links from the same domain with the same keywords there may cease to be a benefit.

From what I have seen, it is probably beneficial to use different keywords in your links sometimes - not always the same keywords - that would be a more natural linking pattern according to Google and I see evidence of the benefits of doing this.

I think that success in Google for the future depends on implementing linking patterns that appear more natural than what we have done in the past - but that is a whole new topic. Hey I think I will start one about that!