Pagerank 0 vs Page Authority 53....?

[PrizeWize]

I sometimes see sites with PageRank 0 but Page Authority 50+.

For instance http://auto.beginthier.nl/:

PageAuthority = 53
mozRank = 4,64
mozTrust = 5,69
Root domain links = 42
PageRank = 0

How should i interpret these stats? If or instance i'm optimizing for a car related website (a site about: car parts, car insurrance, classic cars), would these be a good place or a bad place to get links from (ignoring the benefits of direct traffic)?

PA = 53 (very good) Vs. PR = 0 (very bad)?

[Horizon]

Hi Lawrence,

It's hard to tell why that page only has a pagerank of 0. If you do some relevant searches in Google, do you see the page appearing in SERPs? Having a PR of 0 doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth getting a link from them - the page could be new, they could have poor architecture, etc.

I would suggest that more important factors from linkbuilding include: contextually relevant webpages, non-spammy anchor text*, and not going over board with loads of similar looking links.

*If you're on a linkbuilding mission across these directory pages, try not to link to the same page with the same anchor text over and over again. Google will spot this and will either give you a slap on the wrist, or just not pass any link juice to your website from the links - either way, it's pointless.

If you're in doubt, it is MUCH better to get only a couple of really valuable links from high authority websites, then it is to get hundreds of links from low value websites.

Best,

Matt

[PrizeWize]

Hi Matt thanks for you reaction,

I'd normally never go after directory links for an international site, but i think in the Netherlands there is something 'special' going on here.  People in Holland seem to use these directories as there 'homepage'. They are called startpagina's with www.startpagina.nl being the most authoritive one. It seems like Google values these links like any other natural link.

I'm making these conclusions after looking closely at other big players in the niche im working in.

When researching http://www.independer.nl/ http://www.easyswitch.nl/ and http://gaslicht.nl/ in open site explorer the highest rated links seem to come from these type of directories/startpagina's. They get links from subdomain directories/startpagina's that are closely related to the keywords they are trying to rank for and often have exact match anchor texts.

When i saw this i thought i could easily replicate these link profiles over time, but would only take over links from pages with good stats: PA 45+ and PR 2+.

This is how i bumped into http://auto.beginthier.nl/ with PR 0 and PA 53. Btw this site was created in 2002 according to archive.org. So its not a new page. Maybe it's the architecture as you suggested then coz the homepage has Pr 2 and the rest 0 http://www.beginthier.nl/.

[Horizon]

Hi Lawrence,

Your research is quite interesting. It sounds like there's benefit from adding links to this type of directory in the Netherlands regardless of the SEO benefit - if the Dutch are using these types of sites as their start pages, then you may actually gain a fair amount of traffic.

Although we have a few banklinks from Dutch directory pages, I cannot say that this was part of any strategy similar to yours. I'd be really interested to know if it works for you, and also whether you get a fair bit of traffic from them.

Please post a blog or something about it in a few months - it would be very much appreciated!

Matt