Buying & Selling Google PageRank - Too Good to be True?
By Alice Seba

There seems to be a lot of buzz about websites that are willing to shell out big bucks for links on sites with high Google PageRank (PR). And many webmasters and webmistresses are going crazy to cash in on the big windfall.

------SIDE NOTE--------

What is Google PageRank? Simply put, PageRank is a bit like link popularity, but there are many factors involved in its calculation.

You can look at the very "briefeficial" Google information on PageRank at Google's Technology Page (http://www.google.com/technology/) or visit The Handy Dandy Google PageRank Figurin' Guide for a more technical explanation and hypothesis (http://www.searchnerd.com/pagerank/).

To find out the PageRank of all websites, including your own, download the free Google Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com).

------END SIDE NOTE--------

The Basic Premise of "Buying" PageRank is This:

People assume that the higher the PageRank, the more valuable the link. Therefore, if they buy some links on the highest ranking sites, they will receive the most benefit.

There are a few problems with this theory. Before you buy and before you sell any links with the hope of gaining PR, consider the following:

1. Where is Your Link Coming From?: Let's say that you are being offered a link from a site whose home page has a PageRank of 9. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but if you are not receiving your link from the home page, you need to know the PageRank from the precise page that is linking to you.

Generally, Google indexes links coming from specific pages that have a PageRank of 4 or higher.

2. Number of Outgoing Links on the Page: If there are many outgoing links on the particular pages, the effect on the pages linked to will be minimized.

Sure a high ranking page can transfer some of its PageRank to another pageby linking to it...This is true, but the effect is diluted as the page only has somuch PR to transfer.

Therefore, it is very possible that getting a single solitary link from a page with a PageRank of 5, might be more effective than receiving a link from a page with a PR of 7 that has numerous links on it.

Before you buy: Always ask how many other links will be included on the page.

3. Long Pages & Placement of Your Link: Google only indexes approximately 750-1000 words to a page. If your link is at the bottom of a lengthy page...it's not likely going to be indexed or affect your PageRank at all. To check how far down a page Google has indexed enter:

cache:url.com

in the search box.

4. Let's Be Serious: Google PageRank is Not the Key to Search Engine Traffic: Sure, it's nice to be able to boast about your great Google PageRank, but even with a PageRank as low as 2 or 3, you can actually get a steady stream of search engine traffic. In fact, if you're targeting very specific keyword phrases in your optimization, as you should be...PageRank is not such a big factor.

5. Where Does the Selling Site Get It's Backwards Links from?: Perhaps, they have a good PageRank, but they could be using deceptive techniques and just haven't been caught yet. If you see a site with backward links from a ton of FFA (free for all links) pages guest books, and the like, steer clear. These people will not have their PageRank for long.

Don't get me wrong, building your PageRank is useful and a desired thing. But there really is no reason to shell out hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, to artificially boost your ranking...particularly if the opportunity is not as good as it sounds.

For a more sound approach to building link popularity, PageRank and your online business, read Increase Your Link Popularity: Building a Link opularity Strategy (http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/art...opularity.html)

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Alice Seba is the owner and editor of
http://www.internetbasedmoms.com, an Internet Marketing &
Networking resource site for work at home moms and other
entrepreneurs.
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Interesting article. I agree about not trying to boost PR just for the sake of it.

Don't get me wrong, building your PageRank is useful and a desired thing. But there really is no reason to shell out hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, to artificially boost your ranking...particularly if the opportunity is not as good as it sounds.


Let me disagree. Webmaster with enough time for link building has no reason for buying PR. But for SEO expert, buying PR is a perfectly valid option. E.G. speed things a bit and fill the gap before natural link building and other SEO techniques start to work.

As you can see, I posted this as an article I found somewhere on the web. I thought it might be able to stir some interesting debate. I believe that building PR is invaluable to a popular website. Take a quick look at the daniweb forum index for a second. See how the Tech Support forums are so much more popular than the rest of the site? The reason for this is because awhile ago, when the Tech Support forums were located at the top of the site, and there wasn't much web dev stuff yet, we had a Google PR7. (Yes, it's gone down since.) During our brief time of glory, Google indexed all of the tech support threads like craaaazy.

By no means do I consider myself an SEO "expert" but I will admit I know quite a deal about SEO and I do always keep it in the back of my mind when designing daniweb, etc. i.e. I am currently working on building our link directory to get back up to that PR7 status.

While other factors influence PR, let's face it, you need backlinks, and lots of them. If you have the time to find link partners, by all means, go hard at work. But think about it - aside from optimizing your pages, an SEO expert will get you your backlinks. Without them, a PR of 7+ (or even 6) is nearly unobtainable.

Therefore, there really isn't much difference between spending the time to get backlinks or payinan SEO "expert" to search the web and find them for you. If anything, the only difference is paying someone to do the tedious work for you.

PR for PR's sake is useless, I can outrank any PR 8 site with a PR 5 just get tons more backlinks with appropriate anchor text and low Pr. PR does not help rankings at all, the link volume and the anchor text used is what helps your ranks.

What Pr does do is increase your spider visits, encourages the spiders to go deeper etc, however thats not what I use buying PR for.

When I get a new client, right away I buy them PR, WHY? Because for some reason the rest of the world hasnt caught up to the SEO Expert I guess lol so they wont exchange links with you unless your high PR. So my solution is to build up a site to say circa PR 7 and then guess what 95% success rate on emailing link partners, long term stable links, many IPS many sites many anchors etc.

Eventually I ween the Pr budget off and we still have all those nice juicy links. Thanks Guys!

Makes sense to me. I like that idea

I think another thing to keep in mind if you're buying PR (which I don't think is a good idea to begin with) is to find out if the site you're buying from bought their PR too.

If they did, and they are doing a month to month type deal with the site(s) they are buying from you could find yourself with an expensive link on a PR0 site.

If they did buy, see if you can find out what type of arrangement they made. Month to month, exchange, annual, etc.

If you are looking to buy PR, why not consider this bridge I have for sale in brooklyn? This bridge is fantastic. By owning this bridge, your google rankings go through the roof, your conversions skyrocket, and all the hot internet chicks come over to your house to write your code for you and do your laundry.

It's an awesome awesome bridge I would be willing to sell for $50 a month. In fact, I might just ebay this bridge. No wait, I'll keep the bridge myself and spraypaint a ton of URLs on it... wait that's a good idea. Now that I think of it, it would probably do more for my traffic anyways. That's it, I am hoarding my bridge in brooklyn for my traffic before google figures out what I am up to.

I can tell you that I purchased links from Seo Guy and I got a PR 7..WOW..but guess what my website is banned/ penalized now.

I can say from experience..its all about the BUCK to those that sell links. These so called Seo Experts dont bother checking IP blocks..which this seo expert I purchased links from added another realtor who was buying from him as well that I link with in a real estate relocation partners group to some of the same purchased links on the same IP blocks.

I cant say for certain because I havent heard back from google yet..BUT it has been speculated that this is what caused my website to drop out of the top 5 rankings for almost every keyword in my business.

Hi Atlanta Realtor,

Getting a link from an external site in no way can hurt you rankings. If that was the case a lot of people would be sabotaging other companies by getting them links from bad places. All SEs change their algos, and sometimes some things that got you top rankings last month will not work this month, and sometimes your competition is working just a little harder than you in the previous month to get the top slot.

If you where banned your toolbar would show a greyed out PR, not a 7. Aslo, getting links from the same IP bloack as your competition makes NO difference. Sometimes pages just fall out of favor with google because it picked up favor for new sites. Keep working at it and you will swim back to0 the top. SEO never stops for any site, and if it does, your ranks drops.