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April 6, 2009

Getting PageRank Without Getting Links

A WebmasterWorld thread has interesting discussion around the topic of pages earning Google PageRank with little or no links to those pages.

The discussion was started by a webmaster who asked, how can his page have a PageRank score of four, when Google webmaster tools reports the page has zero links? The obvious answer is that Google is not reporting all the links yet and it is very possible the page has links, but just not being reported yet. But that might not be the full answer.

WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, feels that Google gives "mom and pop" sites an artificial PageRank boost, in some cases. Let me quote Tedster:

My assumption is that this unusual PR boost is one of the ways that Google helps "mom and pop" sites compete - something that Matt Cutts made a side comment about on his blog a few years ago. He never said WHAT Google does specifically, only that they do a few things.

It seems like many top names in the thread believe in this "artificial PageRank boost." The question is, what is the artificial part? Is it the score shown, how the score is made up, or how Google sees the page in terms of trust and popularity?

In any event, do you believe in the artificial PageRank boost? Take the poll below:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.



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posted rustybrick in Link Building at April 6, 2009 8:42 AM Comments (7)

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Comments

Yes i think there is an artifical PR or PR with no links for some sites with genuine content and this seems like not being applied to all sites. I wish i knew what happens behind the PR updates.

 

Posted by Vamsi Gangavalli at April 6, 2009 09:13

Google says in its everchanging documents about PageRank that more than just links are taken into consideration in setting the Toolbar PR values.

 

Posted by Michael Martinez at April 6, 2009 13:48

I could see an artificial PageRank of 1 or 2, but 4 seems to high.

 

Posted by Scott Salwolke at April 7, 2009 22:37

I dunno. We work with big and small sites, and getting a small "mom & pop" to a 4 seems to go well, with similar efforts the big brand or national sites are more challenging. And that is with links!

 

Posted by Tim Grant at April 8, 2009 12:27

PageRank is based on the inbound link graph. Whatever it is that allows new pages to appear in preferential positions in the SERPs should not be labelled PageRank, artificial or otherwise.

 

Posted by Ned at April 17, 2009 10:24

Is it worth getting links from pages with No Page rank from a Google point of view?

 

Posted by No Name at May 18, 2009 13:18

Hey, you seem to be good with websites and everything. I have a new site, and its hardly getting any people. Could you look at it and tell me whats wrong? Any help would be appreciated. You can find my site here

Thankyou so much!

 

Posted by W at May 29, 2009 19:53

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