Thoughts on our PageRank policy...

With linking experience going back to 1997, we have always treated linking as a branding function, not a search engine optimization function. We advise that clients simply link with as many subject-relevant sites as possible. It is a very traditional approach to this work, and it is independent of search engine considerations.

This approach has been quite successful, while many of the more contrived attempts to "game" the search engines with linking strategies have fallen out of favor, or even backfired!

Our Solution

For clients who wish to pursue a specific PageRank strategy, or any other quality compliance that they would like to apply to their link prospects, our process does allow for client pre-review and approval of all links listed on their site. We can supply a spreadsheet of prospective sites, and the client can use that data to approve or disapprove each link prospect.

We must now ask that clients conduct these reviews using their own designated representative. In this way, all sites listed in a client's link directory will specifically meet the client's own established criteria, as determined by their own representative at the time of review. Due to the subjective nature of such reviews, and the changes that take place on the prospective link partner sites, we cannot do this review work here with any level of compliance confidence.

The bottom line is that we can easily accommodate a PR review process that is conducted by our clients at their own cost, but, from our considerable and successful experience at this work, our standard process ignores PageRank valuations.

We fully realize and accept that our position is somewhat controversial among certain camps in the search engine optimization world. At the same time, we feel that few, if any firms have the breadth and depth of experience that we have at reciprocal linking. Our approach is based firmly upon what has proven to work well for us.

PageRank Considerations

We do not track the PageRank for the sites that we link with, nor do we price accordingly. While PR-based linking continues to be a popular approach among certain search engine consultants, we feel that it may be misguided, adding considerable cost to the process, while yielding fewer links.

PageRank values are constantly in flux. Guaranteeing a PR for a link seems straightforward, but in real practice, it presents a large number of accounting/reporting challenges. If a link is earned at PR4 and becomes a PR1, is there a credit due? Tracking these changes presents constant accounting challenges.

Then again, sites with low PR values can jump to higher PR values quickly. Yet the opportunity to link with them can be fleeting.

And what does the Google toolbar PR value really mean? Typically, reciprocal linking yields low PR links. This work is about volume, not high PR links.

Linking strategies that are based upon PageRank theories can only be considered to be speculative, not definitive. They are popular, but very unproved. Frankly, we do not see them being effective, most especially in highly-competitive situations.

Ignoring the legitimate and relevant, but lower-value PR linking opportunities that your competitors do not is simply leaving those linking opportunities on the table, and yields a built-in disadvantage.

We thank you for your consideration and understanding.