So you want to know how many backlinks you need for a pagerank 2? I could tell ya, but then I’d have to kill ya! Seriously? It’s a little complicated, especially with Google’s menagerie of updates, but here’s some information that might help answer your question: One hundred one. How’s that?
The Other Guy’s PageRank
As I’m sure you’re aware of by now, with Google it’s not all about the number of backlinks you have coming in, it’s more about the quality of those links. The first thing they look at is the other blog’s pagerank. Backlinks coming from high-ranking blogs will have a greater effect on your own pagerank.
To raise your blog to a PR2 level you’ll need 101 links from a PR1 site. In contrast, you’ll only need one backlink from a PR10 site to raise your blog to a PR2. Interesting? Just wait. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
- To raise your blog to a PR3 you’ll need 555 links from a PR1 site, or 1 link from a PR10.
- To raise your blog to a PR4 you’ll need 3,055 links from a PR1 site, or 1 link from a PR10.
- To raise your blog to a PR5 you’ll need 16,803 links from a PR1 site, or 1 link from a PR10.
- To raise your blog to a PR10 you’ll need 84 million links from a PR1, or 18 links from a PR10.
Crazy, huh? But we’re not done yet.
Those numbers are only estimates, because another thing that Google looks at is the relevancy of those links. In other words, are those blogs linking to you because they value your content and want to share it with their readers, or are those links manipulated in some way, such as a link exchange.
And even if those links are coming from “relevant” content, how valuable is that content? Lots of webmasters use article spinning to paper the Internet with their low-quality content, sometimes publishing hundreds of similar articles all at one time. Google recognizes this spun content now and disallows all those links.
You may be lucky enough to have 84 million links coming into your blog from a bunch of PR1 websites, but if most of those links are from non-relevant or poor-quality content, then they aren’t going to affect your pagerank. In fact, they may do more harm than good.
Now, looking at those numbers it appears that it would be a much better strategy to try to generate some of those PR10 backlinks. After all, you only need 18, compared to 84 million, if you want to bump your own blog up to a PR10. But how in the world are you going to get 18 backlinks from a top-ranking blog?
Ok, time to confess something: these numbers are completely made up! You see, I realize that everyone would like to get some hard numbers and know exactly how many links they need to increase their pagerank. However, do you really think that Google would base a ranking system on such a simplistic formula?
Now, I’m going to give you the real answer to the original question: “How Many Backlinks Do I Need for a PageRank 2?”
The answer is: Stop worrying about how many backlinks you need for pagerank and start focusing your efforts on creating the type of high-quality content that other blogs will naturally link out to.
If you have a brand new blog you’re never going to be able to manipulate a PR10 blogger into giving you a backlink. But he may just naturally link to you if you create the kind of content he wants to share with his own followers.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!