What Exactly Is Google Page Rank?
The order in which Google search results appear is based upon a number of different criteria. Page Rank is one of these. Page Rank was developed by Google Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The exact method through which the Page Rank algorithm works has changed over the years since it was first invented, but it continues to play a vital role in the functioning of Google’s search engine. Page Rank helps to determine the order in which search results appear when the search engine is used.
Google Page Rank is a system that essentially rates the relative importance of a website.
(Please read importance = authority)
It is one of the factors through which the search engine Google ranks webpages in order to determine which are most popular and should therefore be pushed to the top of the search results. The Page Rank algorithm produces a numerical score that allows websites to be compared to one another according to the number and type of links that connect to them.
A good page rank means that a website will be more visible to web users and will therefore become even more popular.
It is, therefore, important to understand how Page Rank works if you are trying to promote a website.
Page Rank is based upon the number of links elsewhere on the web that connect to a particular website. The more links connect to the site, the higher its page rank will be. The numbers of links that connect to a website are considered to be a measure of that site’s popularity.
But before you go and start link building 50.000 links to your site… keep reading… is not all about “amount” of links… Pager Rank works also in the quality of links.
Since Page Rank depends upon the links that have been posted online it is a democratic form of search result ranking. It allows internet users to determine which sites will be pushed to the top of the search listings, by listening to which sites are being talked about online. Whenever someone posts a link to a site that they want to recommend, it will be another Page Rank vote for that website.
Each link can be considered a vote for the site to which it connects, or as a recommendation for the website, although Google does not consider every link to be equal. Some are valued more highly than others are because they appear on pages that are themselves considered important. A link on a page that has a high Page Rank will be more influential than one on a low Page Rank site. Links on pages that are found high in the search results for a particular word or phrase will also be considered of higher importance than those on lowly ranked websites.—–> does this make sense??
The location at which a link has been placed will determine how important the Google search engine considers that link to be. A link that is found on a popular site that itself appears high in the search rankings, will be of higher value than a link on a page that is seldom visited and which has few of its own backlinks.
The context in which the link is placed will also affect its importance to Page Rank. The text that forms a link will play a part in determining how relevant the page is to the search query. The words that appear in the links to a particular site will be taken into account by Google when it is ranking the page. If the same word or words appear in many of the links, then the page will be considered to be of higher important in searches for these keywords.
Links in certain locations will not be counted by the Google Page Rank algorithm. Some people place links for their website in order to try to increase its Page Rank value, but when these links are placed solely for this purpose on sites known as link farms, Google will not include them in its calculations. The importance of the site on which the link is placed is taken into account, not just the existence of the link.
The links that are placed on the website itself can also affect its Page Rank score. Google cannot penalize a website because of a link placed on another site since the website’s owner cannot control where links to their site appear. They can, however, choose which links to place on their own website, so Google will penalize a website for containing links to poor quality sites.
In addition to using the Page Rank link analysis system to determine the importance of a website and its order in Google search results, Google also uses Page Rank in its Toolbar and Directory. The functions of Page Rank in these other setting are similar to its purpose in the search engine results. Page Rank is used to determine the importance of a website.
The Google Toolbar can be set up to display a simplified Page Rank score for the page that is currently being shown. Page Rank can be considered to be representative of the importance and reputation of a particular website. Internet users can see the Page Rank score of the website that they are viewing on the Google Toolbar. This allows them to determine how reputable and valuable the website is. Page Rank appears as a value between 0 and 10 on the Google Toolbar, but this is only a simplified version of the website’s Page Rank score. The Page Rank that is displayed on the Google Toolbar is on what appears to be a logarithmic scale. The Toolbar Page Ranks are between 0 and 10, but the real Page Ranks are much larger than this and show a much larger variation. The Page Rank given by the Google Toolbar is also usually out of date since it is only updated on the toolbar every few months, while the Page Rank score that affects search results is constantly being updated.
The Google Directory, which contains lists of sites that are considered relevant to particular categories and which have been added to the directory by human editors, used Page Rank to place the pages it displays in order of important. Users of the Google Directory will therefore see the pages with the highest Page Rank first and will be more likely to use these pages as they have been highly rated by Google.
Page Rank is an important part of the process through which websites are ranked in Google search results, but it is just one of many different factors. A high Page Rank score will not be enough to guarantee a position high in the search rankings. Google also uses other methods of evaluating a page in order to ensure that it provides the best search results to its users. It is not enough simply to count the number of links that connect to a website. Google also has to make sure that the website is relevant to the query.
Page Rank is one of the most important factors in the determination of search result ranks because it is one factor that website owners can manipulate, to a certain extent. It is possible to improve a website’s value in the Google Page Rank system by creating more links to the site. The links that all connect to a particular website are often referred to as backlinks. Increasing the number of backlinks that a website has will help to raise it through the Google search results. Placing backlinks on important pages, such as those that have a higher Page Rank will produce the strongest effect on a website’s place in the search results.
Now.. please keep in mind this is seriously a BRIEF description of what Page Rank is… the reality is that there are TONS of information on the next about how Page Rank flow… usually the topic is not VERY Exciting… but in case you are interested you may want to check
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/more-info-on-pagerank/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pagerank-link-patterns-the-new-flow-of-link-juice
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Gabriel Machuret
I'm an SEO professional living in the South Coast of NSW - Australia. SEO is what I do... I'm not a web guy, or a webmaster, or a designer... I just do SEO ;) Love it. Enjoy it and I still have fun doing it.
8 / 10 / 2010 3:35 am
Hi Gab,
A good explanation of Page Rank. A couple of thoughts:
The comment “Google cannot penalize a website because of a link placed on another site since the website’s owner cannot control where links to their site appear.” is not entirely correct. Google are not silly enough to think that all links are created naturally, and do in fact penalize sites for having too high a percentage to links from link farms etc. Even Google themselves have changed their advice from “there is nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking” to “there is almost nothing” – the key change being the word almost indicating there is something.
See here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34449
I really liked your graph/illustration of the mountain how many sites there are at different levels. I actually did a post on this on a forum a while ago showing some theoretical numbers I came up with to illustrate in number format WHY it is so hard to get higher page ranks, and why people trying to sell links on really high page rank sites are usually scamming people. Not saying the numbers are accurate, but they do make sense at least to me. See this thread (my username “marketingweb”):
http://www.webmasterforum.com.au/google-f9/pagerank-10-how-did-they-do-it-t70.html
Thanks again for the post.
Matt
Brand Police´s last blog ..10 lessons from “Internet Marketers”
[Reply]
Gabriel Machuret Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 3:45 am
Thanks Matt… I believe that is very difficult to affect other site… I know that because my biggest client gets attacked by the competitor ALL the time… getting links from all sort of naughty sites.
There is a better graphic… but includes some advaced maths that is not very newbiew friendly….
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10 / 8 / 2010 5:23 pm
Thanks for this thorough explanation – the mountain graphic is a great visual. I guess I have ways to climb – atleast I am average! Great blog btw!
Julie @ InspiredtoWrite´s last blog ..4 Ways to Discover Inspiration for Writing
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7 / 30 / 2011 12:03 am
I would recommend not to get obsessed with pagerank. Google pagerank is just a irrelevant measure. What really matters is actually getting traffic and conversions. I have a PR4 site with just a few backlinks about 30. All sources are good but it does not have any traffic, why? because it needs authority and authority is not given by page rank.
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