PR Increases

[Halfdeck]

I was so much happier back when I was ignoring all this SEO mumbo jumbo.

You're not missing out on much by ignoring SEO. Fixating on SEO can be a distraction.

It seems like Google imposes a cap on adult sites PR.

There's no cap. Google is mainly a collection of algorithms designed to return results searchers are looking for. If users are looking for porn, Google's goal is to return porn, not some .org sex-ed page.

Those two sites are also trusted by google and probably get extra favor for it

Extra favor? Both Matt and Vanessa's blogs link out naturally and have tons of high profile sites linking in and all of the backlinks are counted fully because they're 100% organic. No recip tables, no ABC/ABA link trade emails, no category page trades.

To Google, those kinds of links fall into the category of link spam. If those links were to count in full, their SERPS would be too easy to screw with. Ever since Big Daddy's release, Google's been open about pouring more manpower into detecting and devaluing manipulative links. When a link is devalued, or nullified (in case of rel=nofollow, for example), it passes less PageRank (or no PageRank at all).

Adult sites' inlinks and outlinks are 99% artificial - that's why the TBPRs are so low.