I’ve come across this question many times while optimizing a site but still couldn’t find a correct answer for it. Does PR0 links or websites really values nothing for Google from any point of view. Many times I found some websites of PR0 in top 10 in search engine results and higher PR sites not able to make it in top 10 (may be many of you also found the same). So if PR0 sites holds no value in eyes of Google then why it puts such sites in top 10 result. If you have any idea about this issue or if you felt same like me, please share.
PR isn’t a measure of “value”. It’s a measure of link popularity.
PR might be the strongest ranking factor… but not the only one
I doubt that it is. Relevance of the page to the searcher’s query is more important.
How do you determine the relevance? mostly by the number of incoming links with the relevant anchor… what do the links pass? they pass PR…
relevance is not a factor… it’s a group of factors (content, titles, overall site content, trust, incoming links) and PR is in those group of factors
I agree 
Relevance of anchor text is very important. However, PR has nothing to do with relevance, it’s just a number between 0 and 10.
I think to say “PR might be the strongest ranking factor”, as you did, is wrong. Relevance is far more important, and PR doesn’t measure relevance.
I have a website with PR0 www.bestnewautomobile.com check out my rankings and the hundreds of millions of results!
Yes thomasr
I am agree with you. Only PR is nothing.
The anchor text of which links should contribute most to determining if each page is relevant to a search? The ones with the highest PR. You can’t count out PR quite as much as you do, IMO. It informs almost everything Google looks at, directly or indirectly. It is that global way to attach weights to all the trillions of data points going into all the calculations.
So it’s not so much about your PR as the PR of everything else connected to your site.
Do not think much about PR.
My websites do not have very good PR, but my clients get better inquiries.
And they are happy and pay me well.
Yes PR help us to get better position in indexing, but think about to get inquiries for you clients.
Forum posting does not help to get good PR (Due to No Follow link) but they send visitors.
Networking sites also does not help to get PR but they send visitors.
Its true.
See Ning a strong social network platform, think about Ivillage, Craiglist and many more sites they send traffic.
Directories Does not send traffic
Have a look at your Analytic, you find that directories does not send traffic.
I would like discuss more on this topic with experts. Please reply.
How much am I discounting PR?
I simply challenged timsoulo’s statement that “PR might be the strongest ranking factor”. I believe that relevance is more important than PR but (relevance * PR) is obviously a good combination.
thomasr - you’re confusing broad match results with exact match (for the google numbers). The competition for “Best New Autos” is only around 41000 - the 232 million results are for where “Best” and “New” and “Autos” appear.
Additionally, there is VERY little search volume for that phrase - see https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - my test reported just over 200 queries world wide.
So ranking number 1 might seem great (and congrats for you doing so), its an empty victory if it doesn’t translate into traffic etc.
sorry… had to admit that I was wrong… the relevance of the sites linking to you and their trust matters way more… even if the links are nofollowed
pr consider only for link popularity. But Google or any other search engine crawl your zero pr site and also ranked it.
I hve one website this site indexing problem i do all work plz let me know what i do?
- Start your own thread instead of hijacking someone else’s
- Make your question clear. Your site is indexed.
Thanks a lot for your all replies and sharing your thoughts. Some of you said that PR is the strongest factor to which I disagree and I totally agree with Hooperman’s replies. I can tell you why i am not convinced with this fact that PR is the strongest factor. In Google, search with a common keyword “internet marketing” and you’ll find a good number of results.
The second link after Wikipedia is with domain name “internetmarketing” and is of PR n/a. Then question is if PR is the strongest factor then how a site of PR n/a comes in top 3 result of Google. If for Google, PR is not the strongest factor, then why people all around the world want to link their website with higher PR sites only and not PR0 but relevant site.
I think you’ve hit the answer. There are no high PR sites.
There are high PR pages and there are authority sites.
Although PR may have played a more important role in the past, because it was abused to manipulate search results, Google now places more importance on a site’s authority. Why do people still think PR is important? I think one of the main reasons is because there’s so much mis-information out there. You would be surprized how many so-called SEO “experts” still think PR plays an important part in getting better SERPs.