The query for the day is (which is one of the most common queries from people who knows what PR is and knows not the real contribution of PR in ranking).

Can I ask also that is it true that you should link to sites which have equal or higher page rank than yourself to improve your own PR?

Let me explain few of the points in really hurry.

Don’t judge a website by PR alone

PR or Google Page Rank was a major factor during the early days of Search Engine Algorithm. More importantly that was and still is the most prominently visible value for the site. There are other parameters like Trust rank, Topical page rank etc which are playing very important role in ranking. So don’t judge a website by just its PR. A site lesser PR than yours may be having more Trust rank and topical rank.

Is it Child site? Will it grow in PR?

Often a good site grows good in PR in long run. Not only in PR but in all the points, so if the gut feels that the site has a good business model, the concept looks good, the website is professional then there is chance that the site may grow in the days to come. Go ahead and get links from it.

How can you judge the website for linking?

As mentioned above PR is just one factor, judge a website/link by following parameters:

1. Theme of the site: (Do site:domain.com keyword) and see how many pages are there that are indexed
2. Traffic: Check quantcast or compete or google trend for website, so see the traffic it gets. Even you can check SEMRush to see the total keywords for which it is ranking.
3. Age of the site: Check the age of the site
4. Backlinks of the site: See how many backlinks it has, check Yahoo UK, opensiteexplore.org, majesticSEO
5. PR: Google Page Rank of the homepage and the page that is linking
6. Content of the page that is linking

Too tough, let me share my Golden rules

I don’t care about PR at all (I don’t have PR toolbar). I check following points:

1. The about us page, contact us page to know their business model and the people behind the site.
2. The overall site look and feel, content, I do a site:domain.com in google to see the total pages and the quality of the first few pages.
3. Baclinks: In Yahoo UK, I try linkdomain:domain.com -site:domain.com to get all the external links. Now a days I am trying opensiteexplorer.org too.

If I am convinced with the above 3 points, I will link to the site or will get a link from the site.