Having been a webmaster for a while now, I’ve started, been through and come out the other side of the proverbial Google Pagerank tunnel. Having been in this world, I now understand how little Google Page Rank (PR) matters. If PR does matter, then you will always be limited in what you can achieve. If you are selling links to gain PR, then Google will eventually catch up with you and kill the pagerank of your site. That means your source of income dies off with your site’s loss of green magic.
With the recent change in policy of Google against sites selling paid links to pass PR, it further highlights the issue that Google PR is an arbitrary and insignificant measure. Ironically, Google’s solution for paid links is an abuse of W3C standards in its own right. This policy that has been well argued for months now, with a great commentary from Andy Beard, a venting from James Morris and speculation that Yahoo are happy with paid links.
I won’t argue the issue with paid links here, but here are some reasons why Google Pagerank is not important.
1) Pagerank means nothing!
Google PR is a measure of how important Google considers your site to be (i.e. not the general web community). The detail of the calculation has been speculated for years. However, it roughly translates to the number of high quality websites that link to your website. What “high quality” means is also speculated, which helps to support my idea that its worthless. Pagerank only has real value to Google.
2) What he shall provide, he can taketh away
Google Page Rank is calculated, owned and controlled by Google. Do something they don’t like, and you lose it. I intentionally said what Google doesn’t like, as opposed to something that is actually wrong.
Paid links are a matter of debate, but they are certainly not wrong. Paid links can contribute to how important something is, though it is open to abuse. But then everything is open to abuse to some degree. It needs control, but Google is not the one to enforce it. Sorry, I said I wouldn’t debate paid links!
3) Focus on Pagerank, lose sight of your visitors
Making the assumption that Pagerank doesn’t matter, then any effort or time dedicated to PR is being wasted. That time should be focused on your website visitors, clients, customers or whoever your target audience is. Unless you have visitors to your site, there’s no point having a website really. Time could be better spent on content, design, or even improving your advert placements to boost your earnings. Even focusing on your adverts is better than pagerank!
Conclusion
So my reasoning that page rank doesn’t matter is because its an arbitrary measurement that you have no real control over that doesn’t realistically improve your earnings or website traffic.
As soon as you start depending your business model on pagerank (such as paid blog posts or links), then you will eventually lose your revenue stream when Google penalises your site for selling paid links to pass page rank. If you do successfully sell links based on page rank, there’s only so many links you can sell before you run out of link space, and therefore a limit on your earnings. If your business model depends on visitors, and traffic building is your priority, then you will have a reliable revenue stream. And theoretically, there’s no limit to your earnings as the number of visitors to your site increases.
I’ve tried selling paid links and got caught out in the end. By focusing on traffic rather than pagerank, my regular revenue was massively increased.
source
With the recent change in policy of Google against sites selling paid links to pass PR, it further highlights the issue that Google PR is an arbitrary and insignificant measure. Ironically, Google’s solution for paid links is an abuse of W3C standards in its own right. This policy that has been well argued for months now, with a great commentary from Andy Beard, a venting from James Morris and speculation that Yahoo are happy with paid links.
I won’t argue the issue with paid links here, but here are some reasons why Google Pagerank is not important.
1) Pagerank means nothing!
Google PR is a measure of how important Google considers your site to be (i.e. not the general web community). The detail of the calculation has been speculated for years. However, it roughly translates to the number of high quality websites that link to your website. What “high quality” means is also speculated, which helps to support my idea that its worthless. Pagerank only has real value to Google.
2) What he shall provide, he can taketh away
Google Page Rank is calculated, owned and controlled by Google. Do something they don’t like, and you lose it. I intentionally said what Google doesn’t like, as opposed to something that is actually wrong.
Paid links are a matter of debate, but they are certainly not wrong. Paid links can contribute to how important something is, though it is open to abuse. But then everything is open to abuse to some degree. It needs control, but Google is not the one to enforce it. Sorry, I said I wouldn’t debate paid links!
3) Focus on Pagerank, lose sight of your visitors
Making the assumption that Pagerank doesn’t matter, then any effort or time dedicated to PR is being wasted. That time should be focused on your website visitors, clients, customers or whoever your target audience is. Unless you have visitors to your site, there’s no point having a website really. Time could be better spent on content, design, or even improving your advert placements to boost your earnings. Even focusing on your adverts is better than pagerank!
Conclusion
So my reasoning that page rank doesn’t matter is because its an arbitrary measurement that you have no real control over that doesn’t realistically improve your earnings or website traffic.
As soon as you start depending your business model on pagerank (such as paid blog posts or links), then you will eventually lose your revenue stream when Google penalises your site for selling paid links to pass page rank. If you do successfully sell links based on page rank, there’s only so many links you can sell before you run out of link space, and therefore a limit on your earnings. If your business model depends on visitors, and traffic building is your priority, then you will have a reliable revenue stream. And theoretically, there’s no limit to your earnings as the number of visitors to your site increases.
I’ve tried selling paid links and got caught out in the end. By focusing on traffic rather than pagerank, my regular revenue was massively increased.
source
