Is it possible to get high page rank without backlinks?

[IndiaFPS]

Today while looking for expired domains i found many high pr domains, checked for fake pr found they are valid but there were zero backlinks pointing to them.Is this possible?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi,

Yes, this is very possible. Page Rank doesn't just focus on backlinks, but many other factors as well. I have seen sites that have a PR of 4-5 and not a single backlink, but amazing content - I have seen sites that have a PR of 1-2 and loads of backlinks.

This is more common that you might realise.

-Andy

[TheeDigital]

Do you have any examples of this Andy?  I was under the impression that backlinks are exactly what gave you pagerank.  I would assume those with higher PR you saw just had links that whatever indexing agent like OSE did not see, but Google did, and the ones with loads of backlinks were simply low quality or there were lots of links on the particular page.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Not without going searching again, but it was only incidental and had no need to undertake this for many months now. It wasn't something I went looking for.

[IndiaFPS]

I googled and found this statement on joomla forum " the site Page Rank it's a combination of: content, relevance, design, visitors and backlink so the back links is the last. I have site with no backlink and have PR3."

[David-Kley]

Yes, it is rare, but possible. Given how many things make up the alogorithm, I'm sure there are many things at play that affect this, some of which have already been mentioned here:

1. content
2.relevance
3.design
4.visitors
5.backlinks

[StreamlineMetrics]

Actually, you are correct. Google's PageRank algorithm has always been all about links. Check it -

PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

More on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank.

This being said, Google's toolbar PR is not nearly as influential as a ranking factor as it has been in years past.