How on Earth Do You Fake a PR (PageRank)?
Why would one want to have a fake pagerank? Google PageRank is a factor that determines a websites price. Usually the higher your pagerank is the more cash you can get for your website or advertising space on your website. Many webmasters are also buying pagerank for their website(s). A link to you on a website that has a pagerank of 8 will pass some juice to you and google’s robots will see this as a good vote for your website. Sometime later your web page may end up with a higher pagerank. The popular belief is that pagerank is all it takes to make your website more popular and thus appear in search results more often.
While it is one factor to determine the positions of your web pages in search engines, it certainly is not the only and most important one. The recent google penalization of selling text links has cooled down matters a little bit, but websites with forged google pageranks still appear daily in the webmasters markets. Now that the reasons of why one should fake a page rank are known, we will look how this is done and how to avoid purchasing such websites or advertising on it.
SPOTTING A FAKE PAGERANK
There are two possible indicators that show google pagerank may not be valid. One is when a page shows pagerank in online tools but does not have any or very few backlinks in google. For example a website claims to have a pagerank of 7, but when you check it with the previously mentioned tool it shows no or very few backlinks (50 is very low for a website of PR7).
The Second possible scenario is when a domain is masked to redirect to a higher PR site. The masked page will temporarily gain the pagerank of the page it was masked to, even after the domain masking is taken down. All a person has to do in order to fake a pagerank is use a redirect for their domain and point it to a high pagerank domain. In the Google toolbar it will show the PR of the page it was pointed to.
DETECTING A FAKE PAGERANK
Detecting a fake PR is fairly simple. If you think that a site is showing a fake PR, then simply take a look at its cache version on Google. Make sure you check both instances, with and without the www prefix. One may be redirected, while the other not!
* Check cache by going to google and typing in info:yourdomain.com
* Check cache by going to google and typing in info:www.yourdomain.com
If you type the name of one domain, but results return a different domain, than this means an obvious sign of PR faking. To do that it is either doing a 301 / 302 redirect directly or with the use of cloaking. 301, 302, 200 are status codes which tell your browser what to do next.
* 301 – Permanent Redirect
* 302 – Temporary Redirect
* 200 – Connection Established and The Request Has Succeeded
To find out whether it is doing a 301 / 302 redirect directly or indirectly with cloaking, you have to look at its HTTP Header.
SUMMARY
So next time you buy a website, domain or advertising on a particular webpage, be sure to check out these indicators! If you are suspecting a faked pagerank, leave this website and search for another one.
Great post, I read this a while ago and, since then . I was wondering… can I translate your post into portuguese – with link to your original post, of course?
A webmaster may also want to consider trying to divert the mobie website visitor to a regular website. One way this can be done is by advertising the domain name that is associated with a traditional website. But it must be made clear that the site will only display appropriately on regular computers. Another option is trying to capture the person’s email address by offering them something free, such as an e-book or low-cost merchandise.When they sign up to the email subscription, their first newsletter could advertise the traditional website a webmaster wants promoted. By doing either of these options, webmasters can still take advantage of pay-per-clicks or affiliate programs, revenue generators which may not be promoted on .mobi websites due to viewing limitations with banner or text ads.
All About Mobile Domain Names-When the Internet first came out it was restricted to a wired connection to a computer. Eventually technology improved, creating wireless Internet. At that point the Internet could be accessible through desktops, laptops and mobile devices without wiring. This means that the Internet was now portable. And as more mobile devices are getting created, consumers are exploring how to increase this portability. In fact, wireless Internet has gotten so popular with mobile devices, domain name companies have created a new extension. It’s called .mobi.
Mobi is the extension of choice for websites that are being formatted for cell phones, pdas and other mobile devices. It can be bought from most major domain name companies such as Godaddy or Network Solutions. As far as registering a .mobi domain name, one would go through the same type of procedure that is associated with traditional domain names. This involves first choosing a .mobi domain name and seeing if it is available. If it is not available, the domain name company will offer suggestions on what a person can use. Either way, the customer will be given another chance to select another .mobi domain name. Once they get one that is not taken, they can proceed to purchase it. The contract will last one to two years, depending on what they agreed upon with the domain name company. When the contract is up, a person will have to renew their .mobi domain name if they want to continue to keep it. So, why would a webmaster decide to invest in a domain name that is restricted to mobile devices? Well, it’s mainly because they get an opportunity to center in on a market that is relatively new. Since most webmasters or companies are trying to take advantage of the .coms or the .nets, the .mobi has become somewhat forgotten. This means that it is prime for search engine keywords that would normally not be available for traditional domain names. It can also allow a webmaster a branding opportunity for their company. However, since a .mobi domain name means a webmaster is creating a website specially designed for a mobile phone, it cannot have the types of frills that it could have if it was being promoted on a computer. Good mobile websites need to be mostly textual with very limited number of pics, (if any). Granted, plain text is not fancy, but it doesn’t require much loading time. Mobile phone sites should also not be very large nor should they be created with frames or other more complicated layouts.
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little homework on that. And he in fact bought me lunch because I found it for him