PR for PR

One of my blogs today registered a PR 5 -- an unexpected but welcome news.

So what does a PR 5 mean?

Here's Google's definition of PR:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important".

PR or page rank is a link analysis algorithm that designates numerical weight to elements of a hyperlinked sets of documents. It was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page and later Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine that we now know as the colossal Google. It provides the basis for all of Google's web search tools as it determines ranking in search results.

PageRank is a probability distribution used to represent the likelihood that a person randomly clicking on links will arrive at any particular page. It can also be considered as a ballot among online pages to determine importance or relevance.

The Google PR is a constant subject of debate. According to several papers, the concept has proven to be vulnerable to manipulation. Whether or not it really matters in the search engine world is also a lingering question.


Some uses of the PR:
PageRank is used to automatically rank WordNet synsets according to how strongly they possess a given semantic property, such as positivity or negativity.
A search engine crawler may use PageRank as part of a set of metrics in determining which URL to visit next during a web crawl.

Search engine optimization companies also use PR in their "linking" or "link harvesting" operations. This is tantamount to PR manipulation but no major complaint has been raised about this yet. Google has also expressed their intention to shield their search algorithm from yielding to the objectives of this SEO activity.

So how am I supposed to view my "PR improvement?" To me, it only looks like an adornment. Other bloggers tend to look up to one who has greater PR. Perhaps it could someday lead to greater traffic. I am not sure about it. What I know is it can do me benefits.

With all these, I am just baffled how my PR 5 blog made it. I seldom update that blog. This blog has more posts so if content is the basis for PR determination, this blog should have greater PR.


Baffled.