Rich Edmonds said:
THT is right, a lower PR site can easily rank better than a high PR site in SERPs. Whoever disagrees really needs to read up on resources etc., which are credible. Backlinks aren't the only factor in PR. It's one of many including the following:
- Age of domain
- Content on site
- Links to other sites
- Structure of site
Focusing entirely on backlinks is a big mistake, as I always say - don't worry about your PR rank for your forum, it's not worth it. Just build a community, if you have a blog or website, have great content and supply visitors what they want. Sure you might have a PR 4 but do you have a good bounce rate? Are you making good money? Are your visitors returning? I'd rather have a healthy PR 0 site ranking first for insurance, then a PR 5 site ranking on the 5th page for that keyword and having terrible content due to priorities in the wrong order.
Actually THT is wrong... THT stated that PR doesn't effect SERPs what so ever even though it's been *proven* that it does, sure some sites with a low PR may outrank a domain with a high PR but if you look around, it's rare.
😉
I'll agree that a high PR isn't the only main factor in SERPs but it *does* help and anyone who says it doesn't is a fool!
- age of the domain.
Yes, that's a factor but that's also why they sell for a high price and I don't see anyone around here going to buy a 9 year old domain for like $60 ...
- Content on site.
Also a factor, the content of a site is important as the content is recorded by the bots and show up on search engines...
- Links to other sites.
A good factor but guess what!?! Linking to other sites lowers your PR and is why it's a factor...
- Structure of site.
Sure, I'll buy that one... it's got to help, just common sense but if your using a forum software then your kinda limited to a few things in the structure... amirite?
Yes, focusing on backlinks is a mistake... but backlinks help.
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I agree that focusing on the content is good, having a good community is good, and supplying what people want is also a really good tip... I can see where your coming from and it proves your a good admin and webmaster but to become a *great* one you've got to get your site out there as well and backlinks to other sites will do a lot of things...
1) Attract visitors from the site the backlink is on.
2) Get you a PR which *does* help with SERPs.
3) Get your site crawled more often.
4) Earn you more money if you decide to sell your website/forum/domain.
Those are points which have been proven and undeniable by anyone.
You'd rather a PR0 website that ranks number one over a PR5 domain? Well chances are the PR0 isn't going to be number one... and I'd go with the PR5 as if it is the case I'd buy some really high quality content for insurance, focus on some keywords, get some more traffic to the site and then sell it off for a really good profit... to be perfectly honest.
Earth Be Lost™ said:
Although a high PR will help you with your SERPS. 🙂
No it wont, you could achieve a PR 4 on a site (as my example above) but rank terribly for all your keywords. It's just an indicator for how Google views your site, not how good it will rank it in results. Is the PR ranking system even up to date? Or is it out of date and Google provides us with data on how it viewed our websites a few months back so we can't manipulate SERPs too much?[/quote]
Your example above is crap mate... it's like me saying the sun is smaller than pluto. Sure you can rank badly for your keywords but websites with a PR4 kinda, mostly, a good 90% have good keywords due to it coming with the process of building your backlinks and getting a PR. I know it's an indicator, I never said it wasn't I said it helps with the SERPs, which is undeniable...
The PR ranking system is up to date. Google also doesn't provide data on how it's viewed but google's bot source has been leaked a little while back and guess what!?!? It *did* infact have PR as a factor... go find it if you don't believe me and look for yourself.
Hoping to get PR3 back soon 
