What is important for page rank?
-
I have heard quality is the most important factor for page rank but after the 7 Nov 11 PR update I am no longer a believer. The PR on my home page dropped from 4 to 3 and the rest of my inside pages remained the same even though I have added a significant amount of content since the previous update and kept it fresh. Any thoughts on this most recent PR update?
-
Keep in mind that "quality" is a difficult term at best, and even if you could pin down a definition of quality, Google still has to translate that (imperfectly) into code. There are a lot of factors that go into determining the value of a link. Rand had a good post on the subject here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
Many of these aren't even quality issues, per se. For example, if you have a blog comment on a high PR page, but you're 1 of 300 comments, that links isn't going to count much. You could argue that's a quality issue, but it's also just simple math - the PR of that page just got split 300+ ways. Even if every single comment was relevant and topically appropriate, it wouldn't count much.
There's also TrustRank (we simulate it with mozTrust), the recent Panda factors, and other quality variables - they all tackle a different piece of the puzzle. Then, you've got user factors, like bounce rate, that are probably starting to come into play. So, I don't think you can just look at it as Quality vs. PR - there's a lot more in play.
Edit: Sorry, I was reading this as "link quality", not the quality of the site itself. There's no either/or - both content factors (including on-page factors like good Title tags) and link factors matter, along with social factors these days. The best approach is going to tackle all fronts.
-
There are different viewpoints on outbound links. Reliance on link exchange is outdated, and Google is known to frown on anything resembling a link farm. However, I have seen people cite Matt Cutts (sorry, don't have any links to back this up) as saying it is beneficial to have some outbound links to reputable sites.
To be honest I recommend you focus on site performance rather than PR - are you ranking/getting traffic/converting? PR may slightly increase the likelihood of you ranking but it doesn't guarantee it and it doesn't put money in the bank. I recommend this Whiteboard Friday from August to help you put PR into perspective http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-is-googles-pagerank-good-for-whiteboard-friday
-
I have noticed that some of the sites that I link to also lost some PR so perhaps this is why. I have added links since the last update but most of them had good page and domain authority with average PR. I did also remove outbound links from my home page to authoritative sites on the advice of someone. Perhaps I should add these back? The only other reason I have been given is that google is penalizing sites that have reciprocal links with others sites (just a few) from my home page. Does this make sense?
-
PR is not as important as keyword ranking and traffic.
-
PR is related to your link profile rather than being a direct measurement of site quality (although better site quality makes it easier to get good links). It sounds as though you have either lost links or some of your links have reduced in value (either by linking domains losing links themselves or by their outgoing links being devalued because the domain has been identified as spammy). Try this for an explanation of Page Rank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Miffed about why the page isn't ranking!
HI all - hope you can help We seem to be dropping back and fourth completely on one of our key terms and I really don't get it. The home page seems to now be ranking for another but I have made a page purely for this main term and whilst it was starting to rank well , we have now dropped off for it. Anyone able to lend some advice?
On-Page Optimization | | KellyDSD860 -
URL, page title, item name - which is most important for google ranking
We are a bridal store and are able to use different information in the URL, Page title and item name. In item name we give the product a name for us to identify ie. Alex Lace Dress in Black/Nude, Ivory/Nude, Red/Red In Page Title we use the suppliers name and product code as well as the item name ie. Jadore j8075 Alex Lace Dress Online Australia URL = alex-lace-dress/ Are we using the correct format ? What could we do to improve them?
On-Page Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
On Brand Queries Google does not shows my home page first instead of it shows internal pages.
Also on my brand query it doesn't shows sitelinks. What may be the reason?
On-Page Optimization | | vivekrathore0 -
"City page" links in footer of home page: Spammy?
Is listing a bunch of links to city pages in the footer of a home page considered "spammy" to Google? (ie- Chicago Alarms, Illinois Alarms, Naperville Alarms, etc.) What are the negative affects this might have on ranking, if any?
On-Page Optimization | | MChi0 -
Can you 301 redirect to a page that has other pages 301 to it?
Two years ago updated url page to include better keywords and used a 301 redirect from the old page to the new. so www.example.com/keyword-1st-generation.html now points to ... www.example.com/keyword-2nd-generation.html That moved the pages up in ranking, but now have better kw for the url, so is it okay to redirect the /keyword-2nd-geration-html to www.example.com/keyword-3rd-generation.html And what is a good length of time before removing the 1st-generation url? It's been 3 years and there is no chance of using it again. Plus, no sign of it in analytics.
On-Page Optimization | | AllIsWell0 -
On-page report tool
This is a question regarding the advise this tool offer to increase the ranking of a webpage with focusing with a particularly keyword we choose. I give an example: On-page Report Card am checking my keywords and I use. "cleanse london" my surprise is Report card give an "F" for my target landing page http://www.purifyne.com , but the issue is I am already in first place first position. I know SEOmoz know have the algorithm from Google to know how to rank better but my issue is should be a little more accurate! at least. I don't want to be misunderstood here, I just want more guidance, to rank much better using this tool that I am paying for. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | teksyte0 -
Duplicate Page Content for Product Pages
Hello, We have one website which URL is http://www.bannerbuzz.com & we have many product pages which having duplicate page content issue in SEOMOZ which are below. http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-1.html
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-10.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-11.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-12.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-13.html We haven't any content on these pages, still getting duplicate page content errors for all pages in SEOMOZ. Please help me how can i fix this issue. Thanks,0 -
On Page SEO Tool
Hello - I'm looking for one tool that does the following and was wondering if anyone knew of such a tool? In a perfect world I would like to enter in one domain name and have a report generated that shows All Internal links, link titles, and anchor text All internal broken links / redirects All images, image size and image alt, if the image alt is missing. I'd love to be about to export these reports to excel and quickly run my on page optimization. The goal is to produce a checklist for a developer to execute quickly. Thanks for your help Gabe
On-Page Optimization | | Gabe0