Whether you are a search engine optimiser, a web master or you simply want to know how search engines work, you need to know about Google page rank. This article explains how Google determines trusted sites and elaborates on some of the factors in detail including the PageRank algorithm.
Page rank, an introduction
Google uses the ‘page rank algorithm’ amongst many other factors to determine which web pages are displayed at the top of search results. Expressed in a range from 0 to 10, the algorithm essentially ‘confers’ ranking from one page to another. Thus, for example, if a page rank 6 page links to you and there are no other external links on that page your page potentially gets a page rank boost of up to 4.8 (only a maximum of around 0.8 of the page’s own rank can be conferred). The reality is that the conferred ranking is distributed across ALL links on that page so a page rank 5 page with 5 links on it confers at most 0.8 page rank to each of its linked-to pages.
In practice, page rank is something the webmasters tend to obsess about, frankly because it is one of the few visual measures of ranking provided by Google, other than of course the presence of a site at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Page rank is, in fact, a measure of . . .page rank. Many webmasters rigidly refuse to trade links with sites with lower page rank than their own, regardless of relevance. This is a mistake.
There are a good many page rank 0 websites that appear at the top of the results for relatively competitive terms. Equally some high page rank sites don’t appear for their target keywords. All of this indicates that, as you may expect, page rank is but one of many ranking factors in the Google algorithm.
The Google algorithm has developed over time and is far more complicated than it used to be. For example trusted sites will have higher search rankings and Google is known to have had teams hand reviewing high traffic and ‘major brand’ sites. The ranking that really matters is overall ranking in the SERPs. Over the last few years many methods have developed to improve a page’s rank. Today, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of promoting a site’s overall search ranking by using a combination of various legitimate techniques.
Link Building
Google’s page rank and indeed your overall position is based on how well linked a site is. Link building is the process of creating (on your own site and on other people’s) relevant links to improve a page’s SERPs ranking. The more relevant sites that link to a site, the higher it will rank for relevant search terms. In contrast, having random or off-topic links to a site will not really improve its search ranking and may indeed harm it, particularly if you have returned or ‘reciprocated’ those links. This is not to say that reciprocal linking is a bad thing (contrary to the opinions of some in the industry).
Google still rewards on-topic reciprocal links provided that they are properly acquired. Decent, on-topic links with relevant terms in the link text or anchor text from legitimate sites should create sustainable long term ranking. The focus here is on relevance and the ranking of the other site in the SERPs — not on whether it is a PR5 site or not.
On-Page Content and Code Optimisation
Early search engines used to heavily rely on META tags - these were created by the web designer to describe their own site and write their own keywords. However since these are easily manipulated (and abused), modern search engines such as Google index or crawl pages’ content and determine their own descriptions and keyword relevance based upon on-page content in combination with META tags, keyword density, the use of heading tags and so forth.
Designing pages to contain only relevant content to a subject is thus vital for good SEO. Each page should try to be specific to a particular topic (and include relevant keywords) but of course link to other topics. Generally it is important to make the first section of text in a page concise and relevant to the content of the rest of the page. The importance of fresh, unique, regularly updated content cannot be overstated.
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