Is W3C Selling PageRank Or Just Thanking Supporters?

Via Barry Swartz at Search Engine Watch Blog comes the news that you can get a PR9 link at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web site in which they will also list you on an additional page that has a PR7. How much? If you make a contribution of $1,000 or more, you can be listed on this page which boasts a Google Pagerank of 9. The link is not permanent but renewable annually. Additionally they will add you to this page which boasts a Google PageRank of 7.

All in all it seems like a pretty good deal that has me tempted – a PR 9 link and a PR 7 link for a little less then $84 a month! This from one of the most trusted sites on the Internet. The W3C Home Page is not up for grabs… yet. It boasts a rare PR10.

Will the links work in boosting one’s rankings in the search engines? Hard to say because some links do show well when you search their anchor text while others don’t. However this could be a result whether the site itself is properly optimized for the same phrase that is contained in the anchor text of the link. But all in all if you want to support W3C for $84 a month or more and get the types of links you’d normally pay hundreds for, head on over to www.w3.org/Consortium/sup for more details.