Is Pagerank really dead?

I've been focusing on PageRank for so long now, and since I'm out of the loop, not much of an IM'er and only focus on producing content - I was confused when I read that PageRank isn't an effective ranking factor anymore.

How come my PageRank extension (chrome and firefox) still work and a lot of people are still offering gigs like: backlink from PR6 website and such?

I read that DA and PA and Trustflow (?) are the factors now, but people still talk about PageRank. So what gives?

Is PageRank Really Dead?

PageRank is still being used by Google. Google just isn't sharing the PageRank values of pages publicly anymore.

So all of the existing PageRank values that are out there right now are old values. The pages might still be at that level. But, more likely, those pages have either increased or decreased in PageRank since the numbers quit being published. In most cases that internet marketers are concerned about, like public link sources they can easily acquire, you can bet that those PageRank values have actually decreased.

Therefore it is not very useful to go by a PageRank value.

For example, there are many websites out there that had PageRank values of PR3 or PR4 homepages. These websites would get added to a link network where subscribers of that link service could publish blog posts about whatever topic they wanted. Then those links would pass their link juice to the subscribers' websites. Many of these sites that were added into such networks have completely lost their PageRank. They are essentially PR0 homepage websites just like a newly registered domain would be. But their Toolbar PageRank still says PR3 or PR4 (whatever it was before they got added to that link network). So when people get a link from the homepage of that site they are thinking that they are getting a link from a PR3 or PR4 page, but in reality they are really getting a link from a PR0 page.

Google quit publishing PageRank values because they realized that doing that wasn't good for Google. It helped people like us manipulate the search results better. And it helped spur a new industry of websites that essentially just sold PageRank. And those are two things that Google doesn't want people to do because it skews Google's ranking algorithms.


3rd Party Tools

There is no other 3rd party tool that closely mimics PageRank values. Even MozRank (which was intended to simulate PageRank) is ineffective at usefully mimicking PageRank. It is ineffective because Moz's index isn't identical to Google's. (Google's is way, way bigger) And it is also because Moz doesn't know which websites Google has removed PageRank from. Without knowing those two things, it is impossible to accurately calculate PageRank. And that is also assuming that Moz is calculating PageRank using the same exact formula that Google uses (which is highly unlikely). It is highly unlikely because (if you test it) you can see that Google is distributing PageRank across links differently than that original PageRank algorithm suggests. And you can also tell because when people like Matt Cutts explain how PageRank works, they always state a disclaimer that says "In the original PageRank formula" implying/meaning that there is an original formula and a newer (maybe multiple newer) updated version(s) of PageRank.


Link Sellers

The people who are still advertising (backlinks from PR6 sites) and stuff like that are doing that because they can't prove their website has any other value for helping a page rank better. If they are selling links in public, there is a really good chance (very likely) that the website they are claiming has a PR6 page has actually lost (most if not all of) that PageRank.

Wow, PTTed, that was an amazing reply, thanks!

It makes sense for Google not to publish PageRank anymore, since it was being beaten to death by spammers trying to mooch off high PR sites. Does this mean that existing PageRank toolbars don't show accurate information? My site still shows a 0, wheres as DA and PA are in the 20-40 range, which has been frustrating since there's been no movement in PR!

Is it a good indicator that a site still has PR if they haven't been spammed and are still active?

bigupman said:

Wow, PTTed, that was an amazing reply, thanks!

Click to expand...

No problem Hitler. :ertery: (sorry, I couldn't help it - that mustache and the black hair and the eyes - it just reminds me of Hitler)

bigupman said:

Does this mean that existing PageRank toolbars don't show accurate information?

Click to expand...

Yes. That is what it means. That page's actual PageRank could be and likely is different than what it was a couple years ago. Like I mentioned before, for many of the sites that internet marketers might try to get a link from (like link sellers), the actual PageRank of the pages they are selling links from will be equivalent to what used to be labeled as PR0.

bigupman said:

My site still shows a 0, wheres as DA and PA are in the 20-40 range, which has been frustrating since there's been no movement in PR! Is it a good indicator that a site still has PR if they haven't been spammed and are still active?

Click to expand...

PageRank has nothing to do with whether a site is active or not.

Most webpages on most websites flow PageRank as long as they are not nofollowed. For the most part you can just assume a page will pass some of its PageRank through a link on that page as long as there isn't a reason to think that site lost its trust from Google.

How do you lose Google's trust? -
* By getting lots of spam links pointing back at your website
* by selling links that pass PageRank,
* by linking out to bad neighborhoods,
* by allowing other people to create link spam on your site,
* by participating in link schemes, etc.
* etc.

If the site you are getting a link from does any of that or has done any of that in the past, then there is a decent chance the site isn't going to help your rankings. If it does help your rankings, it might only help for a short while until that site gets nailed. Or it is possible that the site won't get nailed and it will keep passing value to your page. You don't know.

This is why, ideally, you want to get clean links that look natural (even if they aren't) from websites that don't engage in spam in any way.

And ideally, you want the pages you get links from to have more PageRank because it makes their links have more rank boosting power.

Certain pages on websites tend to have more PageRank to pass than other pages. An example of this would be a website's homepage or a page that is linked to directly from the homepage. Those pages typically have more PageRank just because the majority of websites out there have a link from every page on their site pointing back at their homepage. That generally causes the homepage to acquire more PageRank than other pages deeper inside the site. Some of the PageRank from every single page flows over to the homepage.

There are instances where internal pages have more PageRank than the homepage and more PageRank than the pages linked to from the homepage. I have sites like that where an inner page has the most PageRank (well at least they did back when they published PageRank numbers publicly). So if a page has lots of links to it and those links come from non-spammy sources or even if it just has one really good link pointing to it from one really good source, then that page tends to have more PageRank to push through its own links.

Hope that makes sense.