i have to sites that are a page rank of 3.....how do i get them to 4 or 5...
any suggestions.

Take a green magic marker, and draw over the toolbar. Only problem is everybody else gets a PR 5, too. You could slaughter an arctic penguin, which gets you exactly two points. Or you could get links that you don't have any control over, or create yourself.

Why do you want a PR 4 or 5 ... or any number for that matter? It doesn't control where you land for your keywords, it doesn't necessarily bring any traffic, let alone the right kind, and it takes time and attention you could put into things that have benefits.

Jim you're PageRank will go up as you get more links. Each link into one of your pages helps increase the PageRank of that page. How much depends on a lot of different factors.

But Forrest is right it's just a number and it's only one of many, many factors that determines where a page ranks. Increasing your PageRank shouldn't be your goal. If it is then you're ignoring many more important goals.

Building links into your site is a good thing because they can drive direct traffic and help your pages rank better in search engines. But don't think about it in terms of PageRank. If you do you'll miss out on some very good links.

Those quality link exchanges seem to get more and more difficult to come by -- well, at least in the field my sites are in -- these days. I get so many people that want to exchange but they'll slap my link on a page filled with a lot of low-budget links or some HUGE directory where my link will just get lost in a massive amount of other links. Since I've gotten extremely picky in the last two years regarding who I link with and to, my page rank dropped from six to four. Seems like a person just can't win sometimes!

I'm going to refer to this every time someone asks a PageRank question, since it's the single best resource for explaining PageRank and its importance presently available.

jimb12, read this. It comes directly from a Google employee in Ireland:

I Have PageRank.

It explains the importance (or relative lack thereof) of PageRank and includes some commentary about the other 3 digits' worth of factors that make up Google.

Jeni, there are many ways other the link exchanges to get links into your site. Most link exchange requests are probably garbage, though there are certainly sites where it makes sense to exchange links with each other.

It's not about the quantity of links you get, but rather the quality of the links you get. Look for other ways to build links. For example building relationships with people is a better way to gain links than exchanging with them. Get to know some people who own sites where you want a link. Build a real relationship with them. Help them out in some way without necessarily asking for something in return. People are more likely to help someone they consider a friend. So make some friends in your industry and related industries.

Originally Posted by fitnfree

quality link exchanges

Is there such a thing?????

Good PR back links .... is the big big thing which will help u to get good PR

Buy or link exchange to quality and related site.

Originally Posted by dee_el07

Buy or link exchange to quality and related site.

This is terrible advice. This can only apply to people who are unable or unwilling to create something worth seeing.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

This is terrible advice. This can only apply to people who are unable or unwilling to create something worth seeing.

This is just only my suggestion. How about you? what do you do in order for you to get your desire PR? any suggestion?

Originally Posted by dee_el07

This is just only my suggestion. How about you? what do you do in order for you to get your desire PR? any suggestion?

The idea is not to chase pointless goals. Why on earth would you strive to increase your PR? The only reason I can think of is to 'add perceived value' to your website for when you sell it, or to sell links. Both of these options rely on your buyer's perception that PR on its own is worth something (it isn't).

PR in isolation won't help you rank.

Hi,

I am new here. Nice to meet everyone!
I heard that Google only updates page rank periodically, and that they are just about ready to update again. I heard they do it every three months or so. Does anyone know if this is true?

Thanks,
Charisse

Google update the publicly viewable PR in their toolbar every 3-4 months or so. However, real PR gets updated continuously in the background (we can't see it) and it's very important. To ignore it.

The internal PageRank that only Google knows about, and is on a scale of 0 to 1, with all the sites on the web coming to a sum total of PR 1, is updated constantly. It's used to determine where a page lands in a search, when a lot of other factors all come to a tie. It also has something to do with whether or not a page winds up in the supplemental index. External PR, the kind you can see on the toolbar and online checkers, is updated from time to time, on a 0 to 10 scale. It's not very accurate, out of date the minute it's released, and just doesn't tell you very much.

There's probably a reason most people bother with having a web site. Generally it's to sell something, although in my case it's to gain exposure for my photography. So the goal isn't to get a PR of whatever number, it's to get people to see my photos and associate my name with quality. It's to sell your product. It's to gain readers and subscribers if you have a blog. PageRank is a distraction from most of these real goals.

PageRank is one factor among many in the algorithm. It also has something to do with how deep Google will crawl your site. There is some value in having more PR, but...

The PR you see is toolbar PR (TBPR) and it's not the PageRank Google us using to calculate anything. It's also not something you should over concern yourself with. Lower PR pages outrank higher PR pages all the time.

If you build links where it makes sense to build them then your PR will go up. The trap people fall into is in thinking that PR is the end goal, when it's not. Chasing after PR for the sake of PR isn't going to lead to a successful site.

It's like trying to win a race where to get to the finish line you need to pass three different stages en route. Someone somewhere observes that all the previous winners were among the top 5 people to reach stage 3. So you decide that you need to be one of the top 5 to reach stage 3 in the next race. But in your rush to complete the first 3 stages you forget to pace yourself and run out of energy before you cross the finish line and finish last.

Stage 3 wasn't the goal. The finish line was the goal. PageRank is not the goal either of SEO. Targeted traffic is the goal of SEO. You can get that with or without PR. If you focus on getting targeted traffic, say by getting links on pages where people might also be interested in your page, then your PR will end up going up. But your PR going up doesn't necessarily lead to targeted traffic.