Google Page Rank--How Is PR Passed?
We know that each and every web page is assigned a Google Page Rank based on a mathematical algorithm. Pages rank on a scale of 0, the lowest, to 10, the highest. Linking between web sites both internally and externally passes on value, or Page Rank.
If Site A links to Site B, a percentage of Site A’s Page Rank is passed on, or credited, to Site B. Nothing is lost from Site A in terms of Page Rank unless the link is to a banned area, or bad neighborhood.
The amount of Page Rank Site A passes on is determined by the number of outbound links in site A’s pages. The more outbound links, the smaller percentage of Page Rank is passed on. Pages with large numbers of outgoing links pass very little Page Rank, and in some cases may cause more harm than good. Try to avoid linking to pages that have large numbers of outgoing links, like link farms or FFA pages.
A real-life example: Site A had a Page Rank of 4. There were only 2 outbound links on Site A. One of those outbound links was to brand new Site B. Brand new Site B had 3 outgoing links, and NO other incoming links besides the one from Site A. Google awarded Site B a new Page Rank of 4.
From this real-life example, we see that the fewer outbound links per page, the more Page Rank is passed.
If Site A in the example above had a large number of outbound links on the page, then a smaller percentage of Page Rank would have been passed and new Site B would have received a lower rank than the equal rank that was passed on.
Higher Page Rank sites linking to your site to pass PR is valuable, but normally, high Page Rank sites have a tremendous number of outbound links so the true Page Rank pass is normally minimal. It is also hard at times to get a quality high Page Rank page to link to your site. Lower Page Rank sites can be important in passing Page Rank, and so are link exchanges. Their Page Ranks usually grow with age and they have more inbound links than outbound links, creating a higher Page Rank, which in turn passes to your site via its outbound link.
In general terms, an individual page’s Page Rank is determined by the number of links going out of that page (outbound) and the number of links coming into that page (Inbound). A general rule of thumb is to try to have more inbound links than outbound links.
Things to avoid.
When doing reciprocal linking, make sure you check the number of outbound links that not only the page has but that the site has overall. Search engines like Google don't like link farms (sites with thousands of links), gambling sites, or pornography. Unless that is your business, don’t link to any of those kinds of sites.
You can lose Page Rank and search engine results by linking to sites that are banned, or in bad neighborhoods. Be aware and check before linking.
Know where your outbound links are going. Periodically
check your outbound links making sure that they are pointing to:
1) An active website
2) A resource for the reason you linked to them in the first place
3) Have not changed themes and are still quality sites.
Page Rank grows over time. Google updates visible Page Rank infrequently--every 4-6 months or so. The best SEO strategy is to link to and exchange links with
like-themed and quality sites.