(6)
Of course PageRank is overrated these days, but out of curiosity, how does the PageRank values distribute to other pages nowadays? A quick look at some PR values on some pages, you can quickly see it does not appear to be like it was two years ago. Shawn at DigitalPoint started a thread he named Internal Link Passes More PageRank Than External Link. In that thread he explains how he has page A, which has a PR 7, it links to page B and page C. Page B has only one link, and its from page A. Page C has many links, including one from page A. Now Page B, with only one link, from page A, has a PR 6. Page C with many links, including one from page A, has a PR 5. Does that make sense to you? Certainly, since both page B and C have a link from the same page, page A, page C (with more links) should have a higher PR then page B (with only one link, the same link page C has).
Let me quote Shawn's example:
For example:http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/ is the only page that links to http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/faq.html
Check MSN: link:http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/faq.html Check Yahoo link:http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/faq.html
So with a single link, that page is PageRank 6.
Now there is also a link to the support forum: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14
That URL is linked to from numerous other places as well, so at the very least it should have the same PageRank I would think... right?
Check MSN: link:http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14 Check Yahoo link:http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14
Instead, that page has a PageRank of 5.
I did not link to the pages, I don't want to kill the linkage data. :)
So what is up with PageRank these days? There are many theories in the thread. I personally do not know for sure, but I would bet the PageRank of the old works a bit differently then the PageRank of the new.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Comments:
sam
12/28/2005 07:07 pm
On many sites have seen the trend that the PR value reduces by 1 for every level down from the home page. For example if the home page has PR 6, the next level has 5, the next one 4 and so on.
Erik
12/28/2005 07:41 pm
Barry - The link to DP is broken. Try <a href="http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=46937">here</a>
Nadir
12/28/2005 08:24 pm
I agree with Sam, from my observations it seems that PR is distributed this way: index: PR=X index/subfolder: PR=X-1 index/subfolder/subfolder-1: PR= X-2 and so on... then you can modify the PR of each page independently, with external links.
Erik
12/28/2005 09:33 pm
Oops - I meant the final link in your post. The first one works fine. Sorry :)
ShandyKing
12/28/2005 10:36 pm
I found with OsCommerce, PR is all over the map. PR decrease 1 point from the home page to the catagory page. I have 3 sub catagories all with the same PR. Crazy thing is, the products page has 0 PR.
Jason Golod
12/28/2005 11:26 pm
Clearly they are doing things differently these days...or at least showing them that way. The "one page down" theory doesn't resonate with me. Check this page http://www.golod.com/tag/adsense at PR4 and the home page at PR3. The best part is, check it out in the G directory and it looks like I should be at PR5/6 (guy above is 6, below is 5), or so, on the home page...and it has been that way for some time (pre the last toolbar "update" I believe). I do feel like I have seen a ghost every once in a while....where I will see the PR of an internal page tick up a point. I swear I have seen this a few times, when there is no real major toolbar update going on. I have seriously lost it.