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What is going on with Google PR & Backlinks?
By Andy Williams

With more and more noise on various forums from anxious 
webmasters I decided to take a look at the data available to 
me, and there were a few tell-tale observations that might 
help clear up this question.  

Here is a small sample of what I found.

1. On several of my own sites, I have some pages with zero 
page rank despite having links pointing to them from PR 5 
pages on the same site. These pages are now 2-3 months old. 
Shouldn't they have PR by now? 

2. Most of these pages rank well despite their apparent zero PR. 

3. Doing searches on Google show up a lot of anomalies. Many 
top ranking pages have a zero PR. 

For example, go to http://www.prsearch.net/

This is that great search tool I mentioned in my newsletter 
last week: 

http://ez-search-engine-optimization.com/ezseo

which gives you the PR and backlinks of the search results 
at Google.  

Do a search for Bratz dolls.

Here are the top 10 sites when I searched:

#1 PR 6 Backlinks - 151 
#2 PR 7 Backlinks - 5 
#3 PR 0 Backlinks - 18 
#4 PR 4 Backlinks - 2 
#5 PR 0 Backlinks - 0 
#6 PR 0 Backlinks - 0 
#7 PR 0 Backlinks - 0 
#8 PR 0 Backlinks - 0 
#9 PR 6 Backlinks - 46 
#10 PR 0 Backlinks - 11 

4. Backlinks at Google don't tally with known backlinks. This 
has been reported a lot in various publications recently. Google 
used to only show backlinks from PR 4 or higher pages, but it 
has been reported that backlinks from lower PR sites are showing 
and backlinks from some higher PR sites seem to be missing. 

Reading through these observations, it is clear that something 
is going on.  

It might look at first glance that PR is either being ignored, 
or perhaps not being updated since lots of pages which should 
have PR don't. I don't think this is the case, and I will explain 
in a moment what I believe is going on. However, before we do 
that, let's consider some of the other stuff listed above.  

Look at those top 10 results again. 

How can it be that 6 pages with a zero PR rank in the top 10 for 
a competitive term? 

Also, how can it be that some of those PR zero pages don't have 
PR, yet they do have backlinks? Look at position 10. PR zero yet 
11 backlinks reported by Google. Go look at those backlinks and 
they all have PR zero as well. So is Google now reporting backlinks 
from pages that are PR zero? 

It all seems very weird, yet I believe the answer to this is 
very simple. Google has not updated the PR in the Google Toolbar 
for some time, yet in its own database, PR is largely up to date. 
This means that pages that appear to have a zero PR may in fact 
have much higher PR and therefore rank better than might 
otherwise be expected.  

>From a webmasters point of view, this is a real pain. Imagine 
putting up a site, adding a page to get some link partners, but 
not getting any PR on the links page for several months. You 
contact other webmasters for a link exchange, but the other 
webmasters ignore your request because you are PR 0! 

Could it be that Google has decided to update the Google 
Toolbar far less frequently, or not at all, so that webmasters 
cannot find out the true PR of pages in the index?  

It is possible, but if so, why would they do this?

Google used to show only backlinks from pages with PR 4 or more, 
yet now appear to show backlinks from pages with much less PR, 
even zero PR. Does this mean that Google has changed their policy 
on which pages they show as backlinks?  

Possibly, though doesn't it make more sense that Google still 
only shows PR 4 pages as backlinks, but since PR on the toolbar 
has not been updated, we see these backlinks as significantly 
less PR than they actually are? 

For any search engine to return the most relevant results 
possible, those engines must try to stop webmasters using 
techniques that get their web pages better rankings. For Google, 
this includes manipulating PR. 

Google states this clearly in their Program Policies for 
webmasters using Adsense advertising on their sites. 

Read through the section "Site Content" and look at the last 
point in the bullet list. Google specifically mentions PR 
manipulation. If Google is applying these rules to Adsense 
advertising, does it not make sense that they also apply these 
rules in their algorithms? 

If Google is trying to:

a) prevent reverse engineering of its algorithm, and b) prevent 
webmasters from using techniques that might get a webpage ranked 
higher than it deserves based on its content, 

then surely, not updating the PR on the toolbar is a good thing 
for Google. 

In doing so, it makes it very difficult:

a) for webmasters to find out why top ranking pages rank so 
well, and b) for webmasters to get links from other webmasters 
(which is a way of manipulating PR and increasing rankings). 

I know Google wants to make their engine the best it possibly 
can be, and they should be applauded for that. It makes it 
easier for searchers to find things of relevance. I believe 
that the whole idea of Pagerank was based on the premise that 
quality sites would get links from other sites because of their 
quality, not because of artificial linking like link exchanges. 
Link exchanges have just gotten out of hand and made a mockery 
of the Pagerank idea. 

So what can you do about it? Well, my suggestion is the same as 
always. Add quality content to your sites. Other sites will 
naturally link to yours because your site offers value to THEIR 
visitors. In addition, write some quality articles and submit 
them with your own resource box that links back to your site. 
Submit these to sites that reprint articles, and you will 
naturally grow your own backlinks and PR through quality content. 
Your rankings will improve, and Google should love your site for 
the value it adds to the internet. 

For details on how to use Articles for better rankings, you 
can read my f.r.e.e. report at: 

http://www.ez-search-engine-optimization.com/newsletter-subscribers/using-articles.zip 

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Andy Williams is author of the free, ezSEO internet marketing 
newsletter, offering subscribers up-to-date information on 
all aspects of internet marketing. 

http://ez-search-engine-optimization.com/search-engine-optimization-newsletter.htm 
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