How to increase PR of sites?

Incoming link from lower Google PR external site

• Getting an incoming link from an external site with a PR lower than the PR of my own page- does it : a)Tend to lower my PR b)no effect c)Tends to increase my PR I have read that one should go after sites with PR more than ones own. However an incoming link from lower PR is still an incoming link, so is there a benefit (however small) or is it harmful to ones own PR.If one cannot find many sites with higher PR willing to link back , is it worth trying to make up in quantity with incoming links from many sites with same or lower PR ? Thanks,Slogging

• Answer:

  Hi Slogging, It's a tough question to answer with any certainty, because no-one apart from Google Search Engineers knows (and we at Google Answers have no contact or relationship with them). In my experience, from following discussions at forums like WebmasterWorld, I believe: Any link is of benefit. If the link comes from a link farm etc, then it will dealt with in other ways. It is just commonsense that Google would count the total number of incoming links, and use it to some degree. Incoming links from pages with a PR of 4 or more count the most. This assumption is based on how Google only shows these when you do a search for backward links. PageRank numbers are not a simple 1-10 scale - it is just an easy way to represent the true numbers. PageRank is not linear, but more akin to the Richter Scale for earthquakes. The true numbers are more likely to resemble: PR1 = 10 PR2 = 50 PR3 = 200 PR4 = 1000 PR5 = 3000 PR6 = 10000 PR7 = 50000 PR8 = 500000 PR9 = 3000000 PR10 = 10000000 I just made those up, some people have tried to work out the precise numbers ( see http://pr.efactory.de/e-pagerank-implementation.shtml for one example), but the important point is that if you look at the numbers in that manner, and take each PR as representing the number of votes a page can give another page, then it's not 5 PR1 links = 1 PR5 link, but more likely 100 or 300 or 1000. All those little PR links will count, but not much. That is why the single most important place to be linked from is the Open Directory. A listing is free, easy, echoes all over the web, and usually guarantees you a PR of 4+. Here are some articles on the nuts and bolts of PageRank: Google's PageRank and how to make the most of it http://webworkshop.net/pagerank.html PageRank Uncovered http://www.supportforums.org/pagerank/ Google PageRank http://pr.efactory.de/ My personal linking strategy is this: 1) Never turn down a link, or the opportunity to receive one, unless it is dodgy. Dodgy links include link farms, FFA search engines and guestbooks - basically any link that is created without the personal intervention of a webmaster. 2) Make sites with high PR your priority. A good technique for finding sites that might link to yours is to use the Google Directory. Most sites listed there already have a good PR, and they are ranked in PR order. There is a never-ending supply of sites that might link to yours, so always start by asking the ones that will earn you the most PR, those with the highest PR themselves. 3) Get listed in directories with human editors. Regarding your question on Looksmart: many webmasters avoid them because they can't be trusted. I am one of them. Zeal is okay, but I'm not going to pay them 15 cents per click-through to be listed in the main directory. 4) Don't tell too many people this, but if you use Google Directory, you will often see sites with no PR at the bottom of a category. Half of these are dead. Use AlltheWeb to see who is still linking to these dead sites. Webmasters are often grateful to learn that a link on their site no longer works, and it makes things very easy for them if you can suggest a suitable replacement (your site). To answer your question... if the link is genuine, then c) it tends to increase your PR, but not necessarily by much. Best wishes, robertskelton-ga