[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by webmaster74

That is not what I learned. I?d appreciate it if you could sustain your argument with any solid proof from the horse?s mouth (google in this case)

Sure. Look up the original patent for PageRank. It's in there.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

Dj, such formula, if correct, would not be something that google published. So where does this come from Sir? I?d appreciate it if you could provide any solid argument on this.

See the original patent.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

In fact, if that were true, my site should not be at all having any issues with PR because we have literally thousands of back links in facebook group discussions. Facebook as you surely know is a PR9.

As you yourself point out below, Facebook links are nofollow so they do not pass PR to you. Besides, there are other factors that may discount whether or how much PR is passed to your page by a link from another site. If you have kept up with Google updates over the years, you would know this.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

My site used to be a PR4 for many years. It recently, in an enigma lost more than half a million of pages in google?s index (as estimated by site:mysite) and dropped to PR2. Despite thousands of back-links on Facebook groups, we are still PR2 and not moving any inch forward. The same can be said about the number of pages in Google index: stable at 150-200K.

1. Panda updates.
2. Recent additional updates targeting the value of certain types of links and content.
3. As I said, you yourself point out that those Facebook links are nofollow.

This is not rocket science.

Originally Posted by webmaster74

Sir, if the nofollow has no effect on your PR, why do big sites such as Facebook add target="_blank" rel="nofollow nofollow" to every single external link?

Largely as a spam deterrent. And the target=_"blank" part opens the link target in a new browser tab or window. Nothing to do with PR.