Some questions - starting out

[Bene]

I am looking to start a blog or a website or something on my passion. I am here because I have some technical questions.

I am looking at some blogs in my niche and they have a google pagerank of 6/10 or even 7/10 but barely have any comments.

My question is ... what exactly does Google pagerank measure? Is it it indicative of amount of traffic?

second... Is there anyway I can find out how much traffic another site is getting?

thanks

[tobyhede]

Alexa has some information about site traffic, but they are a little innaccurate. But it gives you a rough idea. Hitwise has reams of data, but you have to pay. There are various reports they publish from time to time and a quick Google may find you some.

PageRank is not a measure of traffic as such, but a measure of your relevance for Google Search. High page rank works out to be high traffic, because if your relevant, Google will actually direct traffic to you ... and generally, because of the way Google works, you need to at least have inbound links from other sites to have good PR - which again, can cause more traffic.

It's all a feedback loop, basically.

[aaronmp2003]

Bene,

Another thing to consider about PageRank is that it is rarely something that can be "bought" or set up in a brief amount of time. One of Google's indicators of how high a page should rank is the actual age of the domain name. Older domain means a potentially higher rank, assuming that the domain has been used that entire time for content that is similar in nature. The more "niche" your site is, the more laser-focused your marketing efforts can be.

As Toby pointed out, getting other sites to link back to you is one of the main things that affects your pagerank. The higher the other site's pagerank, the more they will help to boost yours.

As far as finding out how much traffic some other site gets, I am not aware of any way to do that, short of just asking the site owner.

[AndrewJ]

I wouldn't worry too much about pagerank. I have tons of pages in the top ten results which have low or no pagerank.
Just concentrate on getting links and the traffic will come.


Andrew

[webdrops]

Alexa ranking gives you a great deal of idea about the traffic on the site.... well can't say much about the pagerank thing coz m myself having a hard time understanding the actual strategy followed by these pagerank guys... hope to get an answer here

[GuerillaInternetMarketing]

Alexa is a tool that can be used to make assumptions with, but it is LARGELY inaccurate. Their data is flawed because they get it through people using the Alexa toolbar which is a small percentage of Internet users.

Unfortunately all data that guesses traffic of sites, keyword search volume, etc. is flawed because they never have the complete picture. We're just stuck with these tools and have to do the best we can with them.

As far as PageRank, it's largely based on links and the quality of those links. Also keep in mind that once you are indexed by Google and get a bunch of links from other sites, it will take months for PageRank to update. You can get indexed within a week and with basic SEO methods can start ranking for obscure phrases, but for a new site it can take as long as 3-6 months to have a shot at ranking for anything remotely competitive.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by tobyhede

PageRank is not a measure of traffic as such, but a measure of your relevance for Google Search.

Simply not true, Google takes 100's of factors into consideration when calculating PR.

Originally Posted by tobyhede

High page rank works out to be high traffic, because if your relevant, Google will actually direct traffic to you ... and generally, because of the way Google works, you need to at least have inbound links from other sites to have good PR - which again, can cause more traffic.

That's not true either, PR is affected by links, and only links, it doesn't make one bit of difference if they are*related* or not.

Originally Posted by webdrops

Alexa ranking gives you a great deal of idea about the traffic on the site....

No, it doesn't, as Guerilla pointed out, it is VERY inaccurate.

Originally Posted by GuerillaInternetMarketing

Unfortunately all data that guesses traffic of sites, keyword search volume, etc. is flawed because they never have the complete picture. We're just stuck with these tools and have to do the best we can with them.

The best tools we have available to us are in our site's logs, to find out where our traffic is coming from.

Originally Posted by GuerillaInternetMarketing

As far as PageRank, it's largely based on links and the quality of those links.

As I said above, it doesn't matter what type of links are linking, PR still happens, regardless of what *content* the other page may have.


Bene,
Don't worry about the useless green bar that Google updates every 6 months or whenever. Put your focus on creating great content that your visitors will enjoy reading, and find ways to market your site and network with those that have similar interests as yours.

[Minsc]

As I said above, it doesn't matter what type of links are linking, PR still happens, regardless of what *content* the other page may have.

I think he's talking about the page rank of the sites that are linking to you(which does matter a lot, and also how many links there are on the other site total)...

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by Minsc

I think he's talking about the page rank of the sites that are linking to you(which does matter a lot, and also how many links there are on the other site total)...

Sure.............

If your concerned about that useless metric (Toolbar PR).

[Brutha]

Instead of using alexa you can also use Compete which is a bit more accurate but which is only for US traffic.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by Bene

second... Is there anyway I can find out how much traffic another site is getting?

Question for you:

Why are you concerned about how much traffic *other* sites are receiving?