How to identify that a website has fake PR?
What do you mean by fake PR?
Fake PageRank probably, when the site redirects Google bot to another domain with a higher PR.
In Google:
info:www.example.com
If the results differ from the domain you’re looking up, it’s redirecting and thus “fake”.
The problem is that Google may update the info/cache data more frequently than the Google toolbar PR. That means that the info/cache data does refer to the site being queried (not the target of the redirect), but the PR in the toolbar is still higher than it should be.
In which case, the best thing to do is research the inbound links manually. If a PR7 site has only a bunch of low PR links, it might be fake.
Hooperman, you are very right about that. I had one of my domain names parked by sedo for a couple of years. It had a PR6 all those years, I thought I’ll put a website on it again and it plummeted down to a PR1 in matter of weeks :(. Google did actually update the info/cache when the new website was put on.
This is really a good point Hooperman. Do you know a free tool that can automate inbound link checking?
Thanks Hooper man for sharing useful info to check the Fake Page Rank. I think Fake PR can be checked by checking the site info on the Alexa!
there is no way you can measure actual PR and fake PR . can you give me some example?
One big fake PR game is the dropped domain game. People buy dropped domains with PR then throw a site in them and pretend it is a high PR site. The problem is when google updates the PR for a few months the site turn to PR0.
Usually dropped domains have backlinks that won’t match the current site or they will have almost no backlinks.
Real high PR sites will have lots of relevant backlinks that also have high PR.
Reminds me I saw one PR0 site the other day the guy was trying to advertise as PR4 he had a graphic of a rank tool on the site that said PR4 but he had the main page just redirect to another page so people would not beable to check the PR in the google tool on the main page but might be fooled by his fake PR image.
That’s a common myth but entirely not true. As long as the old backlinks stay, the PR stays too.
I should probably clarify that the PR will not necessarily stay the same even if all backlinks remain. But it changes not because the domain was dropped - the same factors are in play as with normal domain names.
However, it is more likely to lose some of the backlinks and see a lower PR if you put up a website that is completely off topic from what was once there. More so if there are few links.
I’ve bought over 100 expired domains with PageRank since the end of the last year. Most of them have undergone multiple updates by now, and just a few have lost their PR, a number of them even gained it. Of those that lost it, all have lost some of their best backlinks. If that’s not enough data to see why the PR changes, it’s at least obvious that Google doesn’t just reset the PR for expired domains.
BTW…
There are a lot of dropped domains with plenty of backlinks.
I guess my point is that you can hardly call the PR of a dropped domain name fake. Might just as well call any domain PR fake then, because the likelihood of it changing on the next update is quite real.
But yes, I definitely agree that the best way to confirm the PR is to check the backlinks.
Might just as well call any domain PR fake then, because the likelihood of it changing on the next update is quite real.
While that would be a pretty draconian definition, it would probably be a better approach to search engine optimisation than anything else I’ve seen 
Hi Daemon,
Thanks for sharing your experience with us but 1 thing i want to no more from you how to fake pr. Please give us step by step example…
Thanks
Why would you want to fake PageRank (except for dishonest reasons)?
Only women can fake it 
I would call it fake. because the PR is for another site now that site is gone.
Most all dropped domains I have seen lose the PR. I have seen a few that people have tried to put similar content back in and a few links stick on them that don’t turn to 0 but the basic rule of tumb most people go by is if you are dealing with a dropped domain for PR it is worthless because the PR will go away.
Most people selling links on dropped domains or selling sites with dropped domains are just trying to sell them before the PR is updated (before they lose all page rank) = Scam. to me that is fake.
Yes all sites can lose PR but the odds of a dropped domain losing PR are extremely high.
You seem to be trying to buy and sell them and a little biased to the value, to me and most other people they are worthless for PR unless you can sell them to a sucker before they are dead.
I don’t know what you have seen, but I already said I’ve over 100 sites on formerly dropped domains most of which still have the PR over a year later (some even have it increased, and I haven’t done any link building or any that kinda stuff with any of them). That doesn’t seem like extremely high odds of losing PR to me. When a domain is dropped, nobody is going through all of its backlinks and removing them - most stay in place regardless of what happens to the site. It’s only logical that the PR doesn’t drop that easily.
I’m not selling them, I’m buying and keeping them all and creating sites on them. I don’t find them worthless.
BTW, you seem to know “most other people” personally to know what they find valuable.
Just saying, the idea that PR is reset when the site changes, as many things that concern SEO, is a myth. IMO, that’s enough to stay away from making premature judgment of dropped domains without having any real facts.
From what I have seen I believe google 0 PR then re-indexs a url after it is dropped but I am not Matt Cutts so it is just speculation. Most of my experience with dropped domains is watching people try to sell sites and links before the PR turns to 0 and they do turn to 0 most of the time, you can watch them all day long over at DP just as soon as google updates PR or you can look at threads selling high PR links and sites older then googles update and the site will be 0.
It has been discussed and studied most people go with the belief that they will 0 out after dropped.
The dropped domain game, sell expired PR links and sites before google updates and the PR is gone.
Key word being “belief”, and you’re mentioning that mystical “most people” again.
All I’ve ever read on this subject in favor of PR being reset is just hearsay, opinions stated as facts or anecdotal evidence. I’m yet to see a single study that would prove it, and if it did, I’d be very surprised and call myself extremely lucky.
Mind you, this is also just my opinion, but I’m basing it on the fact that out of 145 domains I’ve bought to date (not on DP, btw), only 5 lost the PR in a period of over a year (just did some checkup for concrete numbers). You can call that anecdotal evidence too if you want, but that many domains and the percentage of dropping so low says something in my book.
I don’t have to watch people selling domains to prove myself anything, that would be a little too late, since I’ve already bought a significant number of them myself. Perhaps there’s a reason why people are selling their domains on DP. And perhaps if they’re selling those domains knowing they are crappy, that PR can be called fake if you wish so.
In the end, if you’re buying a domain and care for the PR, check the links. And after you buy it, make sure all those backlinks don’t end up on 404.
All SEO is belief unless you own the SE, I mention “most people” because you are the Only… one I have talked to that believes or pretends to believe that dropped or expired domains don’t lose all PR.