like when someone says my site is PR5, what do they mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagerank

The problem with PR is it's like saying I'll use this host as it's the biggest and has most customers when we all (should) know that's just folly.

I'm not putting links to high PR sites just to get my PR higher :rolleyes:

I think it's a silly system :D

Putting links on your site to higher PRd sites does not increase "your" PangeRank, it increases the site you're linking to.

Putting links on your site to higher PRd sites does not increase "your" PangeRank, it increases the site you're linking to.
Cheers for setting me straight Jamie :)

Still a silly system and one that can be easily abused / scammed to increase a pages PR #.

PR # doesn't mean much unless you're a Google fan.

Unless I am misunderstanding the concept but, what benefits an increasing PR # and do people actually pay any attention or does it effect their browsing habits?

Well, the majority of internet users use Google so I would say yes, PR does affect people's browsing habits.

What PR is (as invented by the Google people):
PR is a mathematical model, and your PR is a number that actually reflects the chance that a user, randomly clicking on links on the web will eventuate on your site.

What PR is to you (the user):
It is more accurate though, for me to say that people's content linkinghabits affect PR (not the other way round). It reflects the natural democracy of the web - the more authoritative and more popular sources of information become a sink for links, thus their page rank increases.

But you are right in that as much as Google and PR affects the web it has broken the web, with spam-sites being made, leaching page rank over "purchased" links or even things as malicious as site/domain hijacking.

What PR is to you (the webmaster):
If you look at the bottom of this page, you see "Related iNET Interactive Sites". You can guarantee that the sites linked here are not receiving anywhere near as much traffic from people clicking them here compared to people finding them in Google, due to the high page rank of WebHostingTalk.com.

What PR is to you (the SEO expert):
Because of Google's dominance as a search engine and a third-party between the user and information, you want your web site to have a high PangeRank. Therefore, you want people with a high PR to link to your site, because the more "votes" you get from strong/authoritative sources, the higher your PR will be.

Thanks but, that's all hype.

It only bothers the people it want to bothers and in 7 years I have never met anyone that says go here it has high PR #

It's all about real coding of pages with headers and content that gets you popular - not PR #

I ain't convinced as it's not a system that I have ever seen that denotes a browser habit to ones site(s) or others I know.

For Google searches at least, it is PR that gets you popular - not coding.

PR # doesn't mean much unless you're a Google fan.

Unless I am misunderstanding the concept but, what benefits an increasing PR # and do people actually pay any attention or does it effect their browsing habits?
Even Google fans aren't interested a lot in PR, I think the only situation where PR is still important is when you are buying links from pages, and the higher PR of the link page the more nerve the owner of the site will have in terms of pricing.
What's really importtant is ratings, but they are based on the too complicated algorithgm and PR it's just one of its components, anothert being originality of content, the relevance of the query to the site content and many more.

like when someone says my site is PR5, what do they mean?
Use google toolbar and you will be able to say for someone how muc is his or her PR ;)

For Google searches at least, it is PR that gets you popular - not coding.
I disagree :)

I've never seen Google give results based on PR #.

Everytime I and everyone else I know use google it uses headers and body to give the results based on the search string used.

My site is zero on Google PR # but, search for eg: superdecoder, avitompg, freeware fax software and other keywords that relate to content on my site and I come out in the top.

Maybe it's me but, I don't and never have seen the importance of Google PR # as it's never anything that's featured important (even visually) when I browse the net.

Yes. Therу are a lot of conditions SERP is based on. And nobody knows them.

Well, the majority of internet users use Google so I would say yes, PR does affect people's browsing habits.

What PR is (as invented by the Google people):
PR is a mathematical model, and your PR is a number that actually reflects the chance that a user, randomly clicking on links on the web will eventuate on your site.

What PR is to you (the user):
It is more accurate though, for me to say that people's content linkinghabits affect PR (not the other way round). It reflects the natural democracy of the web - the more authoritative and more popular sources of information become a sink for links, thus their page rank increases.

But you are right in that as much as Google and PR affects the web it has broken the web, with spam-sites being made, leaching page rank over "purchased" links or even things as malicious as site/domain hijacking.

What PR is to you (the webmaster):
If you look at the bottom of this page, you see "Related iNET Interactive Sites". You can guarantee that the sites linked here are not receiving anywhere near as much traffic from people clicking them here compared to people finding them in Google, due to the high page rank of WebHostingTalk.com.

What PR is to you (the SEO expert):A
Because of Google's dominance as a search engine and a third-party between the user and information, you want your web site to have a high PangeRank. Therefore, you want people with a high PR to link to your site, because the more "votes" you get from strong/authoritative sources, the higher your PR will be.
That was very nice. PR seen from different prospectives. Great. Very extensive and correct. :agree:

Just remember, PR itself is a very broad measurement of how well you do various things with your site. By itself, it has little meaning. In the long run, what matters most is that you're getting quality traffic, that you're meeting your traffic goals, that you're improving your traffic flow, and that you're converting your traffic into sales (or influencing the people who visit you, etc. - whatever your site goals might be).

If you're meeting your goals, don't worry about the number Google attaches to your site. If you're not meeting your goals, look at actions you can take to change this, and don't worry too much about that number. It'll go up. It'll go down. It will do what it does. If it crashes and burns, then you know you've probably upset the search engines (maybe you've been penalized or banned), and you need to look into this. But if (for example) your site is PR5 one month, PR6 the next month, PR4 the following month and then PR5 again, it really means squat in the big cosmic e-universe we call the Web :)

PR is just google's measure of your page's rank in terms of importance on the internet.

Don't worry too much about it, generally most good commercial sites are anywhere from 4-7, but I don't think it makes too much different to your search results, at least not in my area.

But if (for example) your site is PR5 one month, PR6 the next month, PR4 the following month and then PR5 again, it really means squat in the big cosmic e-universe we call the Web :)
What do you mean by squat?

What do you mean by squat?It's a saying that basically means that it has very little meaning. :)

Yes. Therу are a lot of conditions SERP is based on. And nobody knows them.
Absolutely so. That is why not very high PR is no big worry. :)

PageRank is google's measure of how authoritative a web page is, and can be used as a estimate of the probability that a random sufer will find the page by searching the web.

Well, I hope people don't pay much attention to PR to my site because it is "0" now
..hehe

Google PageRank is a system for ranking Web pages used by the Google search engine. It was developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University. In the context of their researches Page and Brin checked the idea that if a search engine will determine the most relevant pages according to the relationships between web sites, it should be more effective, then other search engines of that time.


This conception became the basis of the foundation of Google Search Engine and nowadays PageRank is the heart of Google's algorithm and makes it the most complex of all the search engines.