MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — A Google webmaster video released today tries to answer the question why porn sites are at the lower end of PageRank.
Google's Matt Cutts fielded a question relating to the topic from Studio 3X in New York:
"What are the technical reasons porn sites have such low PageRank? None go over PR6. A lack of links from trusted sites? Rampant link exchanges with low quality sites? Penalties for affiliate links? Or is there a general penalty on the industry?"
Cutts, who says the search giant doesn't have an antiporn rule, theorizes it has to do with popularity vs. links, saying PageRank looks at the number of links and the quality of those links to a site — not the popularity of the site.
“People very rarely link to porn sites, even though a lot of people visit a lot of porn sites,” he says. "Not that many link from within the adult industry."
