I got duped.

 I won two auctions on ebay for Page Rank 4 and Page Rank 6 domains. The auctions ended at slightly different times, and when I won the PR4 domain, I paid for it pretty quickly. But while poking around on the net, I learned that Page Rank can be faked! And wouldn’t you know it, when I checked the domains I won on fake page rank checkers, mine turned up fake! Damn. Luckily, I never paid for the ‘PR6′ domain, which was for quite a bit more money.

I tried to get my money back by filing a claim through Paypal, but Paypal’s Buyer Protection doesn’t cover ‘intangibles.’ So I got the shaft. The seller refused to refund my money (actually, he offered to refund a portion of my money if I admitted fault - FUNK YOU, buddy!).

So how do they fake page rank? They do a 301 or 302 redirect, which basically means they point their site to another domain that has the desired page rank. Google picks up the ‘new’ PR when they do their updates. Domains with higher PR are more desireable (and can earn more money by selling links, for example), so there’s real incentive to do this.

To the important part - how do I protect my self?

• Don’t just check the domain with standard PR tools or the Google toolbar, use fake PR checkers like SEOlogs, CheckPageRank, or RankAlert.
• Type the domain into Google (example.com) and if another domain comes up in the first result instead of example.com, then the page is being redirected and example.com is fake.
• If you’re using ebay, make sure to check out the person’s feedback and past auctions - I’d be particularly careful when buying domains on ebay, though. The seller I bought from had 100% feedback rating, although not a huge number of feedbacks.
• Remember that Paypal does NOT protect you, even if you see that little blurb on the right hand side of the screen -”Paypal - Up to $xxx in buyer protection” - the fine print is in the eligibility link next to it, and it says you’re not protected for ‘intangibles’ - not just if it’s ‘not as described’ but even if it’s never delivered! NO protection from Paypal on this one, folks.

Don’t take the shaft like I did.