What Are PR9 Backlinks? PageRank 9 Explained for 2026
A PR9 backlink is a link from a page that scored 9 on Google’s old Toolbar PageRank scale of 0 to 10. Only a small set of very large sites ever reached PR9, so these links were treated as high-authority backlinks. The term describes a retired, page-level score, not a current Google metric.
The word “page” matters there. Toolbar PageRank scored individual URLs, not whole domains. A site’s homepage might show PR9 while its deep profile and forum pages showed PR0 or nothing. Many “PR9 links” sold since then sit on those deep pages, borrowing the homepage’s old reputation.
What Does “PR” Mean in PR9? PageRank vs. Public Relations
In “PR9,” PR stands for PageRank, the link analysis algorithm Larry Page and Sergey Brin built at Stanford in the late 1990s. It does not mean public relations. “PR backlinks” in the digital PR sense are links earned through media coverage, which is a different idea that happens to share the abbreviation.
The overlap causes real confusion in vendor pitches. A seller offering “PR backlinks” may mean press release links, digital PR placements or old PageRank labels. Ask which one before you pay. The PR backlinks vs. PR9 backlinks section later in this guide separates the two in detail.
How the PageRank Scale Worked (PR0 to PR10)
Toolbar PageRank showed a 0 to 10 score on a logarithmic scale. Each step up needed far more link equity than the one before. Moving from PR2 to PR3 took a modest amount of link power, while moving from PR8 to PR9 took vastly more. That is why so few sites ever reached PR9 or PR10.
PageRank itself treats a link as a vote of confidence. A page passes a share of its own PageRank through its outbound links, split among them. So a link from a PR9 page with few outbound links passed more link juice than the same page with hundreds of links. Our guides to link equity and link popularity cover how that flow works.
The toolbar number was also a rough snapshot. Google updated it only a few times a year, and the real internal PageRank behind it was far more precise.
What Happened to Toolbar PageRank?
Google launched Toolbar PageRank in December 2000 inside the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. It stopped updating the public score in December 2013 and confirmed in March 2016 that it was removing it. Since 2016, no official PageRank number has been visible to anyone outside Google.
By then the public score had become a pricing tool for link sellers. Site owners bought and sold links based on toolbar scores, and removing the score made that market harder to run. Sellers simply kept quoting old numbers.
Does Google Still Use PageRank Today?
Yes. Google still uses PageRank internally as one of many ranking signals. Gary Illyes of Google confirmed this in 2016 and again in 2017. Google has also described PageRank as the best known of its signals tied to trustworthiness and authority. What disappeared was the public toolbar score, not the algorithm.
The PageRank Google uses now is not the 1998 version. Google replaced the original calculation in 2006 with a faster method. It has also moved toward a “reasonable surfer” model that weighs links by how likely a user is to click them. A link in the main content of a page counts for more than one buried in a footer.
Are PR9 Backlinks Still Relevant in 2026?
As a label, no. PR9 is a dead metric that nobody can measure, so any 2026 offer of “PR9 backlinks” is quoting old data or inventing it. As a concept, partly. Editorial links from the most trusted domains still carry real weight, and Google’s PageRank still rewards them alongside the E-E-A-T signals it uses to judge trust.
The useful translation is this: what people meant by PR9 is now roughly a DR 90+ or DA 90+ domain with a strong page linking to you. That link still helps when the linking page is relevant, indexed and editorial. It helps very little when it is a profile page nobody visits. SEO professionals consistently find that one relevant editorial link from a strong page beats dozens of profile links on famous domains.
PR9 vs. Domain Authority, Domain Rating and Trust Flow
Toolbar PageRank was Google’s own page-level score and no longer exists. Domain Authority (Moz), Domain Rating (Ahrefs) and Trust Flow (Majestic) are third-party authority metrics that estimate link strength from their own crawls. None of them is used by Google, but all of them are live and measurable.
| Metric | Owner | Scale | Level | Status in 2026 | What it estimates |
| Toolbar PageRank | 0 to 10 | Page | Retired in 2016 | A rounded snapshot of Google’s PageRank | |
| Domain Authority | Moz | 1 to 100 | Domain | Active | Ranking potential from links and other signals |
| Domain Rating | Ahrefs | 0 to 100 | Domain | Active | Strength of the backlink profile |
| Trust Flow | Majestic | 0 to 100 | Domain or URL | Active | Closeness to trusted seed sites |
| Authority Score | Semrush | 0 to 100 | Domain | Active | Overall link power plus other signals |
The biggest difference is page-level vs. domain-level authority. PR9 described a single page, while DA and DR describe a whole domain. A DR 92 domain can still give you a link from a weak, unindexed page. Ahrefs’ URL Rating is the closest modern idea to page-level PageRank. See our guides to Domain Authority and Trust Flow for how each is built.
Examples of PR9 Websites
When the toolbar was live, PR9 and PR10 homepages belonged to very large properties. These included major search and social platforms, top government portals, global standards bodies, big software companies and leading news sites. Today those same kinds of sites usually sit at DR 90 or above in Ahrefs and Semrush.
Common modern equivalents include Wikipedia, major newspapers and broadcasters, large .gov and .edu websites, and big platforms such as GitHub or YouTube. A link from any of them can be real authority or near-worthless depending on where it sits. Wikipedia external links carry nofollow, and most user profile and comment links on big platforms carry nofollow or ugc attributes. An editorial mention in a news article is a very different asset from a forum signature on the same domain.
Why PR9 Backlinks Were Considered So Powerful
PR9 links were rare, and PageRank flowed through links almost directly in the early 2000s. A single link from a PR9 page could lift a small site’s own toolbar score within one update. Before Google added hundreds of other signals, that jump often showed up in organic rankings too.
That power also made them easy to abuse. Before nofollow arrived in 2005, comment and profile links on big domains passed PageRank freely, so spammers hit them hard. Google responded with nofollow, then with Penguin in 2012 and later link spam systems. Each change cut the value of links that looked bought or automated. The age of easy PR9 wins ended long before the toolbar did.
Types of High-Authority Backlinks
High-authority backlinks today come from editorial placements, not labels. The main types are editorial backlinks in news and industry articles, guest posting on authoritative sites and digital PR coverage. Links from .gov and .edu resource pages, curated directory listings and broken link replacements round out the list. Each type differs in cost, difficulty and risk.
- Editorial backlinks, where a journalist or editor links to you because your content helps their story.
- Guest posts on strong sites, where the link sits in your byline or article body.
- Digital PR coverage, where data, surveys or expert comment earn links across many outlets.
- .gov and .edu links from resource pages that cite useful tools or research.
- Curated directory listings with real editorial review.
- Broken link replacements, where you offer a working page in place of a dead link.
Dofollow links pass ranking credit. Nofollow links are treated as hints, and they still bring referral traffic and brand awareness from big sites.
PR Backlinks vs. PR9 Backlinks
PR backlinks are links earned through public relations: news coverage, press releases and journalist outreach. PR9 backlinks are links from pages that once had PageRank 9. A strong digital PR link today often lands on the kind of high-authority media outlets that used to show PR8 or PR9, so the two can overlap.
The big difference is how they are earned. Digital PR earns links through stories, data and expert commentary, which gives you earned media and a natural link profile. Press releases on wire services spread news, but their links are usually nofollow. Their value comes from journalists who pick up the story and link on their own. Our comparison of digital PR vs link building goes further.
PR9 Backlink Scams and Red Flags
Any seller offering PR9 backlinks in 2026 is selling a number that no longer exists. Fiverr PR9 gigs commonly promise 25 to 100 “PR9 profile backlinks” for around $5. Those are usually user profiles on big domains, created in bulk, often nofollow and rarely indexed. They add risk and almost no authority.
Watch for these red flags in any backlink offer:
- Quoted PageRank scores of any kind, since Google stopped showing them in 2016.
- Dozens of “high-PR” links for a flat few dollars.
- “Manual PR9 backlinks” with no list of actual URLs.
- Claims that links are “Panda and Penguin safe” or “100% dofollow” on platforms that use nofollow.
- Guarantees of ranking jumps within days.
Fake PR9 links cost more than the gig fee. Mass profile and comment spam is the kind of pattern Google’s guidelines specifically warn against as link schemes. Google mostly ignores those links now, but a large batch can still draw a manual action. Our guide to spammy links covers cleanup if you already bought some.
How to Earn Links From High-Authority Websites
Earn high-authority links by giving editors something worth citing: original statistics and surveys, expert commentary, timely newsjacking and genuinely useful resources. Then pitch the right journalists and editors. Guest posting, broken link building and turning unlinked brand mentions into links fill the gaps between bigger PR wins.
The tactics that work most often:
- Publish original statistics and surveys that journalists can quote.
- Respond to journalist requests through HARO-style platforms with fast, specific expert comments.
- Use newsjacking to add expert context to breaking stories in your niche.
- Run broken link building on resource pages at authoritative sites.
- Find unlinked brand mentions and ask the author to add a link.
- Pitch guest posts to strong sites in your topic.
Costs vary widely. Many agencies charge a few hundred dollars per editorial placement on strong sites, and more for DR 80+ publications. Digital PR campaigns usually run into the thousands per month. In typical campaigns, digital PR links start landing within one to three months, while survey-led campaigns take longer to plan and pitch. FHSEOHub’s press release and digital PR services and guest posting service cover both routes.
How to Measure a Backlink’s Value Today
Judge a backlink by the linking page, not a single score. Check the page’s organic traffic, topical relevance, indexing status and link placement. Then confirm whether the link is dofollow and how many other outbound links share the page. Use DR, DA or Trust Flow only as a first filter.
A practical checklist for each link:
- Check the linking page’s organic traffic and URL Rating in Ahrefs or Semrush.
- Confirm the page is indexed and the link appears in Google Search Console’s Links report.
- Look at placement: main content beats sidebars, footers and author boxes.
- Count outbound links on the page, since each one splits the value.
- Track referral traffic and new referring domains over the next few months.
Our walkthrough on checking backlinks in Google Search Console and our list of backlink checker tools cover the tools behind this process.
Conclusion
PR9 backlinks belong to an era when Google showed a public PageRank score, and that score has been gone since 2016. PageRank itself still runs inside Google, so strong editorial links from trusted sites still matter. Judge each link by its page, its relevance and its traffic, not by a number nobody can verify. Your next step is simple: audit any links bought under a “PR” label and replace them with earned placements.
FAQs
No. Google stopped updating Toolbar PageRank in 2013 and removed it in 2016. No tool can show a real PR9 score today. Google still uses PageRank internally, but the public 0 to 10 number is gone.
PR10 was the highest score on the old toolbar scale. Very few homepages ever reached it. PR9 was the next level down and was also rare, limited mostly to the largest platforms, government portals and publishers.
Real editorial links from the most authoritative sites still help. “PR9 backlinks” sold as gigs or packages almost never help, because they are usually bulk profile links that Google ignores or treats as spam.
You cannot check real PageRank anymore. Use third-party metrics instead, such as Domain Rating in Ahrefs, Domain Authority in Moz, Authority Score in Semrush or Trust Flow in Majestic. Treat each as an estimate, not a Google score.
No single metric replaced it. SEO professionals use DR, DA and Trust Flow at the domain level, and URL Rating at the page level. Those numbers guide link prospecting, but organic traffic and relevance on the linking page tell you more.
No. Bulk PR9 packages usually break Google’s link spam policies, and most of the links are nofollow or never indexed. At best they do nothing. At worst they add a pattern that can trigger a manual action.
