Hi. I was recently looking for an explanation as to how exactly PR is raised. There seem to be so many theories, such as '10 PR1 links = PR1, 9 PR2 links = PR2' etc. but they all seem, well I don't believe any of them! So what is the rule when deciding whether or not a pages PR goes up?

Thanks

It's an open-ended scale, believed to be logarithmic (and I tend to subscribe to that theory).

PR10s belong to the sites that have the highest number and quality of links, whereas PR0 belongs to the opposite.

Because sites give and get links all the time and links vary in quality, there isn't really a static number that one can conclusively say will take a site to the next PR level.

Mind you, it's all a moot point. If you start worrying about PR, you're not worrying about your site. The best links are the ones that come organically, not the ones you have to force.

So...deal with your site, and the search engine traffic will come in time.

It's simple
PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Cheers guys

stOx - I really didn't understand that formula lol but cheers anyway!

lol I don't understand it either, But apparently that's how it's worked out.

lol.. same here, i look at the formula for a while and trying my best to understand it but i can't

'Tis true, we can't understand the formula without being clued in on what the variables represent. But even then, I'd be scratching my head. I hate math.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Mind you, it's all a moot point. If you start worrying about PR, you're not worrying about your site. The best links are the ones that come organically, not the ones you have to force.

I hate economics, too, but I think the concept of "opportunity costs" is something web masters need to get hip to. For exactly the reason you just said. People seem to take the approach it can't hurt, but if it distracts you from actually finding visitors and things to entertain them with, then it does hurt.

www.kenkai.com/google-pagerank-table.htm

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

section 2.1.1

Do note of course the PageRank table is NOT to be taken seriously.

But Chris I've based all my seo thinking on that one table. Now I have to start all over again from scratch.

Angelosanto if you look at the link Chris posted above and go to the section he mentions the formula is explained. It actually looks more complicated than it is.

It's basically saying that for every page linking to page A you divide the PR of the page by the links going out of the page and then multiply that by a damping factor 'd' (d is an arbitrary number, but in the patent Google says they use 0.85)

You do the same calculation for every page with a link to page A and sum all the results.

Finally you multiply that sum by 1-d (which will be 0.15 if we assume d=0.85)

All that will be the PR of page A.

Of course that's the original formula from the patent and it has likely changed over the years and as Adam said at the start PR isn't as important as it once was or as some will have you believe.

Originally Posted by stOx

It's simple
PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Where did you get this formula? It's really hard to understand.

Some Google engineer probably got bored and wrote that down???

Originally Posted by Janna122003

Where did you get this formula? It's really hard to understand.

It's from "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" paper written by Brin and Page when they were at Stanford. The paper was the birth of Google, So to speak.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

if you mean toolbar page rank , it's a number which is calculated with formulas which is given on reply 3 . the variables of this formulas are your backlinks and their page rank.

this is for only entertainment . toolbar page rank will not effect your serp results .

Google algo . is based on page rank but the real page rank is a secret

Originally Posted by charlesgan

www.kenkai.com/google-pagerank-table.htm

This MUST be wrong. It simply doesn't work.

Thanks for the explanation though Van Gogh - I can see now that it does actually have some meaning

PR was the reason Google became what they are and at first it was pretty much everything in determining where a page ranks. The problem is that it's pretty easy to manipulate if you understand how.

Over time Google has realized that PR can be manipulated and many of the algorithm updates over the years have been to de-emphasize that original PR when it comes to ranking pages.

PR is still in there though with much reduced role and the formula has possibly gotten an update or two. SO yeah PR is part of the overall equation, but not to the point where it should be your focus.

But it has a number and a green bar Steve, How could it not be important?

The best explanation I ever read about pagerank was that every new pr0 page is assigned a certain page strangth of about .75 that of a pr1 page.
Thus if 2 pr0 pages link to you it would be 1 and 1/2 the strength of a single pr1.
It then gets exponentially harder to get to the next pr level.
All links to your site pass some page rank, even pr0 sites.
There is also a theory that the big G likes to see a continual building of backlinks, if you drop backlinks that sends a message as to which direction your site is heading.

Originally Posted by Angelosanto

This MUST be wrong. It simply doesn't work.

Why do you say that?