I know we are all mostly over concerened about page rank, but is there a direct affect on Search Engine position related to page rank?
The answer to that is yes, without doubt. It is the measure of affect that is in question. Your PR is as a result of links, there might be a filter on which links are used, so it would be possible that even though a page has PR8 their PR has been created by bought links and crap links that might not be being used in the Google backend PR that is used for ranking. It is an absolute unknown.
Obviously it doesn't have much effect. Otherwise, websites would be listed more on value of the PR rather than the value that the keywords listed for the search term have. In other words, the answer is yes, but only in the situation where 2 sites have everything exactly the same.....Same backlinks, same anchor text, same on-site SEO, etc.....But one of those sites has a different PR value, the higher PR will win....Obviously it's not that black and white, there are hundreds of factors that go into determining the position of a page on a particular search phrase, PR is just one of those factors, likely far less important than anchor text. I read a report once, I even wrote about it on my old blog. The report did an extremely detailed research on the most important factors in search engine placement. For instance, they took the search term "Vacuum cleaner" and performed a search across the big 3 SE's. They took all of the top 10 listed sites from each of those SE's and did extensive research on each site individually. What they found was that there are a number of on-page and off-page factors that relate to search placement....Of those factors, PR never once came into play. That's not to say that PR isn't used by Google to determine position, just that it isn't as important as other factors, like anchor text, relevance, keyword density, uniqueness of on-page and off-page content, etc.... One big clue to see the truth in that is to take a look at the top 10 spots on other search engines...Usually, if a site ranks number 1 with Google, it will rank in the top 10 with Yahoo and MSN as well...Yahoo and MSN definitely don't use PR to rank pages...
All true jump, BUT we do not know how much of the PR being shown in the toolbar is actually used by google do we Anchor text & other link benefit and page titles are probably the two most important elements though. Personally as I say, I don't hink pR has a great deal of influence, but without actually seeing the google backend PR it is impossible to say.
I don't agree to the fact that the PR of a site is considered to be the advantage. IF that was the case then why would sites with no page rank at all are seen ranked in top 10 results, ahead of PR 7 + sites which are considered to be athority sites.
What about from a listing point of view if you are listed in 2 sites matching your niche perfectly. One has high page rank while one does not. Will both sites boost your serps equally? From what i have seen serps are almost completely based on relevancy.
Dave, who are you disagreeing with? Your post is disagreeing with what I can only see as mine, if this is the case then you have NOT read what I said. the question was " does the pr of a site have ANY affect" I said yes, because of COURSE PR plays a part in the ranking algo, and that is a FACT, not opinion. If you were replying to my post then I think you should really read what I said, because your argument that if PR plays a part then how come sites with lower PR rank above higher PR sites etc. Your argument is basically flawed because you seem to be replying to the question " is pr the deciding factor or major influence in rankings", ALSO, your understanding of Pr 'might' not be complete, because the ABSOLUTE truth is that NO-ONE outside of the Googleplex will EVER know the true PR of a site. Toolbar Pr is nothing but a gimmick. Sorry if I am barking up the wrong treee here, if I am and you were not replying to my post then ignore me LOL
Position is determined by a lot of factors, relevance is possibly one of them. Some of the other off page factors that come into play is PR, number of outgoing links, internal links, position of your link on the page, position of your link in the text, linking pages title and description, your links anchor text, your sites age(arguable), your pages title and description, the contents of your site, the number of outgoing (external) links, the number of internal links, and many more. Relevance is like PR, although I believe it determines position moreso than does PR, it isn't the only factor.
That's true, what we do know, and it helps a little, is that at some point in the recent past (6 months or so) our actual PR matched that of what is shown by the toolbar....So while it doesn't help much, it still gives you an idea about how much importance is placed on PR (by looking back over the past 6 months and seeing what your position was in the serps).
