Days into the aftermath of Google's webwide PageRank readjustment, website publishers are still reeling.

Many bloggers are claiming that Google has punished them because their "PR" value decreased. When their websites used to be PR6, they're now PR5. When they used to be PR4, they are now PR2.

I contend that there's no reason to be alarmed. You haven't been penalized! It's a readjustment of their toolbar.

The PageRank meter on the Google toolbar is not the "real" PageRank. It's an abbreviation of the real PageRank.

That is, the PageRank value that Google uses to determine a website's popularity is a number several digits in length. You never see this number, and you'll never know the real PageRank of your website. The Google toolbar, however, will show you an abbreviated form of this number, in form of a single-digit number.

So, the "real" PageRank value of your website hasn't decreased. All that Google did was recalibrate the toolbar meter, so that it's more meaningful.

Consider this. Each day, thousands of more websites debut on the Internet. Each day, the top 100 most popular websites gain thousands of more inbound links. As time goes on, the PageRank of these websites are so high, that the Google toolbar can no longer provide a meaningful expression of PageRank.

So what Google did was redefine what differentiates a PR1 from a PR2, and so on. But underlying PageRank value, that is the "real" PageRank value, wasn't devalued as a result. It's still the same, assuming your inbound links haven't changed.

So to answer the question in the title of this article, "No" PageRank is not overrated. It continues to be the heart of Google's algorithm.

Labels: PageRank

There are probably hundreds of websites out there claiming to be one of the top nationwide directories of real estate agents.

I just got an e-mail spam from one of these directories: www.proreagent.com

So, I did a lookup to see how many agents they listed for my town, Menifee, California. Only one agent, for "James Morrell".

I know there's at least fifty that make Menifee their headquarters.

This is why people don't use online directories. They're incomplete, and often times outdated. Even Yahoo downplays its website directory. That's proof that people don't put faith into them anymore.

But what about SEO value? Aren't website directories good for a backlink? Not really. The only directories that will help you are those with editorial oversight. For example, a directory of my favorite real estate blogs has value, because each link is a reflection of my personal opinion. But an agent directory, where any agent can be listed (if they pay money, or reciprocate a link), has no editorial oversight, and therefore transfer zero PR value.

Google remains a "popularity based" search engine. It looks for outbound links that were establised with some level of opinion. The links on an agent directory, however, do not reflect personal opinion.

Let's go back to "James Morrell", the lone real estate agent that appeared in the directory I mentioned above. I did a Google search for...

"James Morrell" menifee

I got 139 search results. I reviewed the first 30 results, and visited each page. Of those pages, only 8 of them pointed a link to James Morrell's website (www.jamorhomes.com).

Now, I ran a backlink search on Google for...

link:http://www.jamorhomes.com/

Nothing showed up!

So despite having at least 8 webpages linking to his website, he's not getting backlink value from any of them! These webpages were a mixture of agent directories and MLS listings, and Google didn't find any of them worth a toot.

So, don't bother participating with online agent directories. You're wasting money, and/or giving away your PR value.

Instead, work on getting links from blogs. Google loves blogs. Look for personal blogs, independent blogs, blogs where every outbound link was made from a blogger's opinion.

Labels: Agent-Listings, Backlinks, PageRank

I received an e-mail from the webmaster of a real-estate oriented website, asking to do a link trade with us here at Real Estate and How. Actually, I think it's one of those pre-written letters that webmasters send en-masse to specific prospective partners.

Here is a quote from the letter...

This is in regards to Link-exchange program for our two websites movers.com & moversweb.com with Page Rank having 5 & 4 of Home page. This is part of our Search Engine Optimization program where we would like to place our two links on your sites. I hope that I will receive link from you in exchange of our links. As soon I receive a conformation for the link proposal, we will place
two links to your website.

This person is asking for a link exchange, but wanted to let me know that her two websites have a PR5 and PR4 respectively. I guess that's important for her to mention.

This is actually among the more tame link trade requests I get. Many of them demand that I may only link with them if I happen to have a site with a PR value of 3 or higher. In other words, they spam all the real estate sites, and remind everyone not to respond if they're too small!

It seem the real estate industry is very hell bent on getting back links from other sites, but has this belief that no one wants to exchange links with you if you're a low on the totem pole. What the Hell does it matter?

Just happy be you're getting a link. It's hard just to get even that!

I know what they're thinking. They're thinking, "If I have a page with PR6, and I'm linking to a site with PR3, then I'm giving them more PR value than what I'm getting back".

Don't look at it that way guys! First, look at it as getting traffic from that website. Any link, reasonably placed, will produce at least some traffic back. If you can get just a couple visitors a day from a link, and then manage to do link trades with another 50 websites, you could get anywhere from 100 to 1,000 visitors a day.

More importantly, each site you link with is going to grow. That PR3 site you're exchanging links with will easily become a PR5 with average effort. Many will eventually reach PR6, but only the very best will get to PR7.

And what the heck good does Google's Page Rank mean for mutual linking anyways? The better links are one-way links, the kind where people link to you just because they like you. This has more value with ranking high on search engines. Create good content, and you'll get this.

The most important part about linking is the anchor text. It doesn't matter if a PR1 site is linking to you, just make sure they're enclosing the right text within the anchor tags. This is the text that Google is going to optimize your website with.

A PR1 site linking to you with the words "real estate" is worth more than a PR6 site linking to you with "Janet's Properties". And consider that the PR1 site will someday become a PR6 site, hopefully with your link still there.

Labels: PageRank, Reciprocal Linking