PR - What is it good for?
I have to admit that I’m obsessed with PageRank. I wish I wasn’t and didn’t care what my PR was. Every time one of my websites has a lower or higher PR, it renews this hobby of mine to learn all I can about PageRank. The bad news is my websites have only moved in PR once or twice, so I really haven’t done an extensive amount of research on PageRank.
This morning my PR 4 was down to a PR 3. It was a devastating blow. How can this happen? This is the same website that I did very little with and was a PR 5 just over a year ago. What is different and what has happened to my PageRank? And while I’m asking questions, just what is PageRank used for?
I have very few answers for my questions but this is what I have learned. PageRank is a number from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best possible PageRank value. Top websites are given a 10 and I believe set the bar for other websites. PageRank is more like a range that your website falls into. I think this explains the ups and downs of my website. As websites surpass me, they bump down my PR.
What is PageRank good for? It is one of several factors Google uses to determine search engine results. How important is it? Only Google knows if it’s a small part of a big part. Luckily my search engine traffic seems to be about the same as usual, so at least my PR drop is not negatively affecting that.
So, PR is just one of several factors that goes into search engine page results. It’s just a number. It’s a number I would love to see higher but for now my keyword search results are still on the radar, and that is the most important thing of all.


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