Hoarding PageRank

PageRank leak is what's supposed to happen when you link to other sites, the idea being that if you link to another site then you transfer some of your PR to that other site, leaving you with less PR.

So, then, the obvious way to gain PR is to have a whole load of related sites (or pages) link to you but not link back to them. That means they leak PR to you, but you don't leak PR to them.

Theoretically, then, this means you have more PR and should consequentially do better in Google's SERPS for your key phrases.

A load of nonsense is what I say, anyway. I don't care how much evidence is presented in opposition to this, evidence is open to interpretation. It's CSI Google time in your house and any minute Grissom is going to turn to camera and make with the one-liner and Pete'll kick in with that opening chord and we all know what that means, don't we?

I look at PageRank like if you were the Pope.

If you were the Pope and you bless someone, it doesn't mean you have less bless left afterwards. If you bless, say, Cardinal Whosis in your Papal Apartments plus for good measure the milling crowds in St Peter's Square as well, it doesn't make you any less of a Pope or any less able to confer blessings. The Pope, for this the Lord our Google hath determined him to be, does not lose PageRank no matter whom he blesseth.

And, Kind Of, neither will you.

I say, Kind Of, because it does matter who you link to.

If you confer or bestow your blessing upon site's A B and C, all of whom Google interpreteth as being of the same theme as your own site and not being one of the spam or the coveting or the bad thing in general, then Google will not deplete your supply of PR any more than God Above depletes the Pope's supply of blessing.

Where the two do make a clear cut distinction, though, is that God doesn't seem to mind if you bless just about anybody, war-mongers, petty dictators, politicians, whoever.

Google, though, (possibly due to its necessary endorsements from Middle America) is more particular. Bless a porn page with a link from your Martha Stewart fan club site and you may well find you have less PR left to bestow upon your own internal pages.

Or any other site, for that matter.

Google has decided there are some sites that it does not like you to bring to other folks' attention, not by artifice, anyway. Further, if you bless an entirely unrelated (in Google's eyes) site with a link but only in the expectation or insistence of a link in return then surely, my children, Google will insist that a gift not freely given is not a gift at all and may lower your PR as a consequence.

Here endeth the lesson in hoarding Page Rank.