A lot has been said about a website’s PageRank (PR) but the question for many who wish to jump in the business is: “When flipping websites, does Page Rank matter?”
There’s really no definite rule as to how significant PageRank is when selling websites. In a scenario where two sites are exactly the same perhaps the one with the greater PR would have the upper hand. But then again, it’s not likely to find two sites that are completely identical so it’s better to know instead whether buyers put a lot of weight on a site’s PR when searching for potential websites.
Fact is, many new flippers make the mistake of putting more store in a site’s PR than they should simply because of the buildup that’s been associated with it. Clever sellers have a tendency to go after these newbies by putting emphasis on a relatively high PR, sometimes even to the point of disguising an otherwise poor-quality website.
More experienced buyers on the other hand, look past beyond the PageRank of a website and evaluates its value on the basis of other factors, the most important of which are traffic and revenue. Other aspects are also taken into consideration such as the volume and kind of backlinks (quality and quantity) and keyword rankings. The website’s PageRank appears way down in the criteria list and may not even be of importance at all for some.
Still, some veteran online marketers would argue that the PageRank counts if the owner is considering a link building strategy that involves link exchanges. If your site has a low PR, not many reputable websites would offer you the opportunity to guest post or agree to trade links with you.
That said, the important thing really when flipping websites is to focus on the quality of the site you are aiming to sell. If you can generate traffic and viable income streams for that site, a high PageRank is simply icing on the cake.