Models of google pagerank, or, is it smart to openly link based on pagerank?
 

I thumped my head pretty good over the weekend, so I've been healing up, but I wanted to start a thread about this topic.

I'm gonna put up a poll to go with this thread - never did a poll before, so let's hope it works out like I expect.

This new thread is of course based on the topics raised in this thread:

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=40372

"Why are people still so foolish that they mention PR in their trade request titles?"

I voted for #2, because that's the most important and likely problem.

But, I also think #1 is a risk.

Type PR4 Hardlinks into your google bar - this board is the first result.

GG&J only comes up in the forties if you just type in PR4 links - among page after page of linksellers.

For some reason the link to the original thread isn't working for me in the first post, so I'll try to post it again.

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=40372

I voted 2. Even though I'm really not a Google student but because it seems to make the most sense that they would rely on their algorithms for the majority of the work and that if it found something that it didn't understand it would then flag it for human intervention.

Bill,
I'm having a hard time understanding the intent of your question based on the answers provided. Are you talking about an actual post or how to base link trades?

Maybe it's just me but I see no correlation between the words "pr4 hardlinks wanted" and the answers provided.

Well I'm confused. You're only concerned with post titles? You think Google finds post titles mentioning PR link trades and punishes sites requesting link trades based on PR? What if webmasters made their link trade requests via e-mail and not in a post title?

Unnatural linking patterns? What's unnatural about a PR4 site having a link trade with a PR4 site? I haven't studied anything at all about PR but I don't see why Google would punish a site just because it requested a link trade with a site with the same PR as it's own. Since no one knows what the actual algorythm is, we can only guess. I think Google is more concerned with relevancy to search term/s.

From what I've heard PR is overrated. My free sites get a LOT of traffic from link list pages that have PR0 and PR1. That's enough for me not to worry about PR. :D

I don't know anything about all this so my questions are just to get information.

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...d.php?p=348798

I guess that's the thread you're talking about, Bill.

I voted #1.

Although I still say someone is not automatically 3 years out of touch for posting PR link based trade titles in your posts, I do believe it is a risk that is not worth taking.

.02

How is it a risk? Google rewards pages with inbound links from sites with high PR. How a page gets them shouldn't matter. If it does matter, how and why would it matter? If it did matter the word would get out and everyone would be asking for link trades via e-mail. It may be my ignorance but I can't see why Google would ever care how link trades are made.

(Anyone know where I can find Matt Cutts so I can buy him a few drinks and pick his brain?)

From what I've been gathering Google does not want this type of thing going on. Same thing with buying high PR links. Why? Well, IMHO if you master a few other things and get high pagerank, you can pretty much place high for just about anything you want.

I'm not trying to stir up a PR / pagerank discussion either, I did mean pagerank.

But as Bill mentioned in the other thread, posting in public you are doing something Google doesn't want you doing, then it's a risk to me.

Where does Google say this?

Where does Google say this?

Matt Cutts has become equivalent to God on these things LOL

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...link+exchanges

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...tts+paid+links

The post about paid links
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/
has caused a stir.

Perhaps the other thing is since the Big Daddy update it appears that reciprocal link exchanges don't hold as much weight, as sites that had previously done well via such exchanges have lost ranking.

Again, it's all complete speculation, up to the individual to decide whether to take it seriously or not.

People who trade for PR tend not to care if the page they are trading with has any relevance to their own page.

I really wish Bill would stop pushing this topic. I love watching my competition spending all of their time tracking their PR while not concerning themselves over the fact that their pages themselves are shit and, even if they had a PR9, Google would still only send them crap for traffic. :D

You sure can - especially if you're a big company with millions of bucks to play with. A Walmart-affiliated company skyrocketed to #1 in local UK results for "car insurance" by paid links alone in the span of just a few weeks (Why target UK results? Biggest piece of the pie for that term, according to Google Trends).

Inadequate paid link detection is arguably the biggest hole in Google's algorithm right now. Link exchanges are less of a problem for Google because they are much easier to detect than one way links that are bought and sold.

Relevance is a big factor but if links are traded its still only one step above trading for PageRank. (Not saying trades are necessarily bad. You can trade up to TBPR 5 or so and then install a semi-sex related blog to pull mainstream/organic links into your domain to round out your link profile).

Linking to quality sites is also a weak strategy if the link is part of a trade. In fact, site quality in adult doesn't matter all that much in terms of search until we have people linking out freely. Unfortunately, affiliate sites linking to the competition freely just makes no business sense.

I guess that's like a motor oil page exchanging links with an exercise equipment page, a running shoe page and a viagra page, all with high PR wouldn't do any good because they're not relevant. I was just looking at the poll question and the answers and didn't see the correlation between having PR in a post title and unnatural linking patterns. I guess if someone is foolish enough to believe that trading links with any page that has high PR they're dumber than me |crazy|. I don't know much at all but I do know that the pages that link to me have to be pages that are relevant to mine.

I did not say I read where "Google" said anything. I gave you my opinion on your question. Which is... I believe you should not post your pr when seeking link exchanges and let me tell you why.

In the other thread started by Bill, I made a post in that thread saying something along the lines of "Whats Big Google gonna do? Zap my listings?".

LOL, well... about 2 days after I made that post, they hit me hard. They didn't take all my listings but they did take some of my better ones like sex xxx, adult xxx, xxx pics, free adult porn, etc...

I am assuming Google hit me with the "bitchslap penalty", but I'm not 100% sure as I still rank #1 for pornsites and have some other decent listings remaining. So, is it coincidence or was it really Google showing me that they are watching and doing something about it??

You make your own choice, but I'm not calling out Google anymore in public. |banghead|

Add this one to the Useless archives. |virgohippy|

I'd rather link for traffic as all this PR stuff is going to peoples heads.
I've noticed various directories charging for links based on their PR as they beleive their value is higher.
I'd pay for a featured listing that will send hits than worry about how much a little green thing shows up on a toolbar.