Are You Hung-Up On Page Rank And Back Links?
Tony Simpson

It's unfortunate that many website owners are so hung-up on
Page Rank, they'll rarely if ever, link to a site with a page
rank lower than their own.

I'm frequently approached by other website owners who it's
clear want to exchange links with one of my websites for no
other reason than its Page Rank and so they can get more back
links to their own website.

That's my experience with quite a few of my own websites. It's
not until you get around a Page Rank 4 do back links come
without you having to go and find them.

Back link requests tend to come more from sites with Low Page
Rank wanting to improve search engine ranking by getting back
links from higher ranking websites. They're also frequently
from websites that offer no relevant content to your visitors
and are from totally unrelated areas.

Many website owners have read a little about why and how to
gain back links, then set about gaining as many as possible
from any site that will give them one in return. They know it's
important to gain back links, but what they forget or never
knew, is it serves little purpose if they're of poor quality.

Poor Quality Back Links are from Unrelated Websites with Low
Link Value.

I was reminded recently of the Google Page Rank obsession by
one of my linking partners. I had advised them that because of
some necessary changes to my website I had moved their back
link to another page.

The website owner quickly emailed to tell me they had checked
the page rank on the new page and finding it to be lower,
advised me there was little point in them continuing to have a
back link to my site.

Although we had been linking for over a year, it only served to
prove they were not linking to my site because of its great
content or because of its value to their visitors, but just for
the Page Rank. When I advised them that their Page Rank check
must have been in error because the page was the same PR as the
previous one, they retained the back link to my site.

The obsession with Page Rank and how many back links a website
has, led Google to put limits on this information.

For those of you obsessed with back linking by Page Rank you
probably know that it only gets updated about every 3 months.
Google also no longer reveals the true number of back links to
a web site. Limiting information about back links is also
something other search engines are starting to do.

An article of mine published on over 17,000 Websites Gained
only 4 back links in any of the major search engines.

I recently proved the limits placed on information about back
links and the discounting of back links, after one of my
articles got taken up on over 17,000 websites. Since the
article has a back link to my website, in theory that should
mean 17,000 back links to my website.

A popular tool for checking back links among other things was a
software tool called Optilink. Its popularity became such a
problem for Google that they set about trying to detect its
electronic signature and then blocking it when people used it.

It looks as if in the past months, that Google have been
successful, because Optilink has been disabled by the developer
from conducting queries on Google for back links. It's also no
longer able to do queries on back links with MSN or Yahoo and
the only one left now is the minor search engine Hotbot.

I'm only telling you all this, because it proves how obsessed
many website owners have become about checking for back links
to their websites and checking Google Page Rank of potential
and existing link partners.

But are these web site owners right to be hung-up about Page
Rank and Back Links and are you one of them?

What if I could prove to you that the value of back links from
another website is not just about Page Rank. That in fact back
links from Low PR sites could be of more value to you than back
links from High PR sites. Would you believe me?

No, well if you want the proof you'll need to read another
article called: "How Low PR Web Sites Can Improve Search Engine
Ranking" by Andy Theekson who advises on Search Engine
Optimization.

The article shows how the value of back links from other
websites is not just about Page Rank but also how many other
outbound links there are from the same page.

It was possible to show how a back link from a PR 2 web page
can be of equal or greater value than a back link from a web
page with a PR 7, 8, 9 or even 10.

The article should be read by anyone who only looks for back
links from High PR sites.

It's often said that people don't value what they get for free
and only value what they have to pay for. This may also be true
of back links since the website owners who value them the most
will often buy links.

Many website owners who have the cash will buy links, or to be
more correct with terminology, buy text links from websites
with High PR pages. Some people would argue this is cheating
and trying to buy links to improve search engine ranking.

The cost to buy text links varies widely from $5 to $30 per
month for a PR 4 link up to $50/mnth for a PR 5 text link. They
become progressively more expensive up to PR 8, when in some
cases, you can expect to pay several $100's per month.

So why would people pay these prices to buy text links on high
PR pages?

Is it for the traffic they expect to get by being on a high
ranking and assumed high traffic page, or is it to gain from an
improved search engine ranking for their own website?

If they want traffic there are cheaper ways, even if you
include Pay Per Click where even at 50 cents per click your
$1000 would give you 2,000 targeted visitors per month.

When you buy text links there are no guarantees you'll get
traffic and you're paying for the text link not by the click
but by the month, regardless of what traffic you get.

So I would suggest that someone who is going to buy text links
obviously believes they're going to improve search engine
ranking for their website.

But are people who buy text links getting value for money?

For the answer to that question you'll need to read the
continuing part of this article: "Can You Buy Text Links And
Get Value for Money?"

About The Author: Tony Simpson, Advises on Website Design,
Promotion and Optimization. The continuing part of this article
is at: http://www.webpageaddons.com/stp/buytextlinks1  - "Can You
Buy Text Links And Get Value for Money?"

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