It doesn’t matter if you are a professional search engine optimizer, a webmaster or just a layman looking to learn about search engines; knowing what Google page rank is, can give you a better idea about what you are trying to learn. The following article elaborates about how Google chooses trusted sites and explains some of the factors in detail including the PageRank algorithm.

PageRank (PR) denotes a website’s relevance in the eyes of Google. The name PageRank is a trademark of Google.

What is PageRank?

Page Rank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references.

The PageRank Algorithm is Google’s primary tool in ranking websites and hence one needs to have a clear picture about the algorithm to win top ranking for a website. It is expressed in a range from 0-10, the numerical weight that it assigns to any given element X is also called the PageRank of X and denoted by PR(X).

 

Google describes PageRank

"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important".

Webmasters place a high importance on PR (in most cases they put too much!) since it is among the very few visual metrics found in the ranking methodology of Google. As mentioned these same people are often too taken by this gadget. So if pagerank is the ranking player then why are websites with page rank 0 coming out at the top of the results for relatively competitive terms or why are some high page rank sites not appearing for their target keywords. What this indicates is page rank is but one of many ranking factors in the Google algorithm. So the ranking we always recommend looking at is the site’s general ranking in the SERPs. (not PageRank) To learn more about how to setup a site properly for SEO I recommend reading this SEO article.

Google’s complex ‘algo’ is far more complicated than it used to be, and Google is known to be using teams for hand reviewing sites. PageRank can be improved by using many methods. Search engine optimization is the most befitting technique for promoting a site’s overall search ranking by using a blend of various legitimate SEO techniques.

Look at Your Link Building Strategy

Your site’s Google PageRank depends on how well your site is linked externally. (that is – other higher ranking sites linking to you.)

Link building is the process of developing (on your own site and on other people’s) relevant links to improve a page’s SERPs ranking. The more the relevancy, the higher it will rank for relevant search terms. If a site features random links and links unrelated to the site content it will only harm the site’s reputation and ruin the ranking prospects. This is so especially w.r.t reciprocal links. But this doesn’t mean that reciprocal linking in itself is a bad SEO tactic.

How On Page Optimization Can Help

Many years back, search engines used to give more weight to META tags –the way one describes their own site and write their own keywords. Nowadays search engines like Google index or crawl pages’ content and find out their own descriptions and keyword relevancy based upon a site’s content and meta keyword density, heading tags (H1, H2 & H3) and so forth. So designing and including relevant content to a subject is thus crucial for fine SEO. Each page should be focused to a specific topic with appropriate keywords and linked to other topics (internal linking) of the site. Fresh, unique and regularly updated content is an added advantage,

Google Page Rank in Summary

Google PageRank is certainly a useful indicator as to a sites’ potential value as a link partner that determines its overall search rankings. Paying too much attention to PR and getting stuck in its algorithmic complexities has its dangers though. You should note that the PageRank we see isn’t that real, as Google updates it very infrequently. It does provide a useful guide though of what Google respects as good content and can also give you ideas as to why they aren’t respecting other pages. 

Related posts: