The Google PageRank Explained Simply A common question amongst website owners is, “How is the Google PageRank assigned to my website?” The answer is not as maddening or mysterious as most people imagine. This short article offers you a simple and easy to understand introduction to the most essential factors you need to know about your site’s Google PageRank. The Aim of the Google PageRank Google’s intention with its PageRank (PR) system is to objectively and accurately assess the importance of each of the billions of webpages in cyberspace that are all fiercely fighting with each other for top placement in Google’s search engine results.

Explained simply, Google’s strategy is that, any website that has many other websites linking to it (i.e. Inbound Links or External Links) must be popular. Why else would so many other sites have hyperlinks pointing to it? Google counts the number of websites that have a hyperlink leading to your site and uses this to calculate your site’s PageRank. The PageRank is a Popularity Contest Google’s strategy is based upon the uniquely democratic nature of millions of autonomous websites that have the free choice to post a hyperlink to a third-party website or not. Accordingly, each Inbound Link a website has is regarded as a VOTE in an intercontinental internet Election. Websites with more votes will have a higher PageRank. Amongst SEO professionals, this is referred to as “Link Popularity,” and this whole system can be thought of as the world’s biggest popularity contest. Google’s PageRank can, first and foremost, be viewed as a “PopularityRank.”

For example: As of January 7th, 2009, www.coca-cola.com has 2,570 External Links and a highly impressive PR8, while www.7up.com has 447 External Links and a PR5. At the extreme, www.wikipedia.org has a PR9 with over 77,000 External Links. All External Links are NOT Created Equal This hypothetical “trans-national cyberspace voting” is not entirely democratic, however, because each individual vote is not valued equally. Google does not weigh all Inbound Links to your site evenly. Instead, it determines each link’s value through a brain-boggling, complex algorithm that only a genius has any chance of understanding. That being stated, the two most important factors which determine an External Link’s Search Engine Optimization value are as follows: The key factor is the Google PageRank of the webpage that contains the link to your site. For example, a link to your site from Wikipedia with a PR9 is vastly more valuable than a link from someone’s private Blog with a PR1. The second most significant factor is the link’s pertinence to your site. Google compares the keywords on your site and the keywords at the site linking to you, and it calculates the External Link’s “Relevance.”

For example, if you sell computers, then an article about “computers” with a link to your website is vastly more valuable than an article about “baby clothing” with a link to your website. Initiate a Link-Building Campaign Today A pivotal SEO strategy is to implement a link-building campaign for your site. The best options you have to acquire External Links to your site are business directories, classified ads, magazines and article databases, business and personal profiles, and collaboratively exchanging links with other websites. For instance, if you set the reasonable weekly goal to get two new Inbound Links, then, within two years, you should earn a very respectable Google PR5.

For information and assistance with your link-building campaign or other Search Engine Optimization services, feel free to visit our website or email us at Marketing Marksman (http://www.marketingmarksman.com) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Copyright NoticeThis article may be reposted, in whole or in part, freely at any website without limitation as long as Marketing Marksman is identified as the author with at least one functional hyperlink to the http://www.marketingmarksman.com webpage.  This article cannot be republished outside of the World Wide Web without prior written permission from the author.  See our site for more legal information and contact information.

Everyone will have heard of the phrase ‘Google pagerank’ being mentioned from time to time, most people don’t even know what it is or how much of an important role is plays on the performance of your website. By learning basic methods that can increase your page rank you will be able to get the full potential out of your website. The scale goes from 0 – 10 with each step being harder to achieve, it doesn’t necessarily go up one level at a time, you could be page rank (pr for short) 0 when you first do your site and then after the first update, it could jump to pr 4. It depends solely on how much work you put into it, there are no set periods when Google decides to update but it’s generally around every 3 months or so. Basically Google page rank is the method of which Google uses to establish where in the search engine you will be place and your sites authority.

This does not mean if you have a pr 5 site you will outrank every competing page below you. There are a lot of factors that decide where you will actually rank which is why it’s important you do your research to ensure you don’t miss anything out that could severely affect your ranking. The pr of your website doesn’t really alter the search engine results that much compared to the content level and link building you will of performed, but if there are two or more identical pages, Google would place the one with highest pr above the rest.

A great way of increasing your page rank is to get other sites with high pr linking to your site, this will show to Google that highly respected sites think that you have a quality site which in turn will boost your pr. You need to put a lot of thought into your link building campaign, try to go for quality over quantity. Many people waste time grabbing thousands of pr0 sites which won’t have that much of an effect, Google may even penalise you for spamming. If you can get 10 pr5 links to your site it would give a better result than the thousands of pr0 would, if you get them on targeted sites you will have more chance of targeted traffic coming through to your website which has more chance of converting.

As a full-time webmaster and site owner, figuring out just what Google wants has been the most challenging aspect of running an online business. For many webmasters Google is the eight ton elephant in the room and you only have two options: upset the elephant and get trampled or quickly find out what it likes to consume and try to feed it.

In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google’s Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google’s ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them.

Until now that is, maybe it’s just me but doesn’t it appear that Google is suddenly opening up about its whole ranking procedures and what they expect from webmasters. Maybe the answers have always been there, we just couldn’t find them. However, a more likely scenario is that someone high up within Google made the decision to be more transparent with it comes to webmasters and how much they would tell them.

In recent Webmaster live chats, Googlers Matt Cutts, Maile Ohye, among others… have been honestly answering questions about what Google requires webmasters to do regarding their sites. These are Q&A sessions dealing with the “burning questions” webmasters have had for years concerning Google and what Google wants. Do a search in Google for “Google Webmaster Help | Google Groups” if you will to find these sessions.

Since I run several modest sites on webmaster tools and Internet marketing I am approached by more than a few people who want me to help them build their online site or business. One of the major issues that always comes up somewhere in the process (usually phrased in different ways) is this question:

What does Google want? What does Google expect of my site? How do I get ranked high in Google?

Mainly because my chief goal is to help these webmasters understand Google better in order to build a profitable site; I have struggled and puzzled over this question for years.

What is Google’s Golden Rule?

Many experts believe it is related to relevancy - the key to getting high rankings is how relevant your content is to the question being asked? Maybe so, but in order to explain it to a would-be webmaster, I had to find the words that would most appropriately sum up Google’s prime directive?

After you go through all the SEO checkmarks, take into account the quality and uniqueness of your content, factor in the credibility and authority of your site and backlinks, and factor in the relevancy issue… this was the simple Google Golden Rule I came up with:

“Always think of your visitor first when creating any content for your site.”

This may or may not be what Google is expecting but all indications are pointing in the direction of the “visitor’s experience” and how good you or your content make that experience? Google is serving up a product, it wants the user of their product to be happy with the results. If they’re happy, Google is happy. And if everyone’s happy then the kingdom grows.

Still anything as simple and as complicated as getting top rankings in Google can’t be boiled down to a single catch phrase. You must do your homework and a good starting point would be to thoroughly read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Studying and listening to the latest Google webmaster chats may also prove beneficial and helpful.

However, there are still those 200 hoops you have to jump through and you must be extremely careful of how you build your site if you’re trying to please Google. Listen when the king speaks. Observe his rules. Be on your guard, and it helps to become just a little paranoid. And always, always remember, an elephant never forgets.

When moving from an old to a new website it is extremely important to consider the old sites existing organic search engine position. If the correct strategy is not undertaken then the old sites position in the search marketplace could be dramatically compromised. It’s important to gain an understanding of two specific areas of the old site before undertaking a strategy:

1) The existing listing saturation: This is the number of pages which have been listed, cached and indexed within each of the major search engines. Each page listing will be producing a level of visitor traffic, each associated to different groups of keywords and search terms. It’s essential to make sure existing page URL’s remain the same or old URL’s are directly mapped to the new site. Making sure that every page directly maps to its new version.

2) The existing link popularity: This is the number of pages which form one way links back to the old site or where the old site has been directly referenced by another website using a hyperlink. These include 3rd party websites, directories, social media sites, articles, news and review websites etc. The Links form the basis of the sites popularity, and page rank. It’s essential to make sure that all links remain live and point to the same active page weather new or old.

Both of these areas are directly related to the old sites existing search engine presence and performance. If a strategy for moving and maintaining these links is not put in place before the DNS is transferred to the new site, it is possible that the new site will receive a massive drop in Page Rank, Trust Rank and listing saturation. It can take up to 6 months to recover from this type of situation and unfortunately there would be a percentage of links to the site which will be lost forever.

There are two main strategies which can be used to prevent this from happening and to maintain the sites online presence:

1) To use all existing URL strings, page titles and meta data in the formation of the new site and its pages. The content, page titles and meta data can be improved or adjusted but the relevance of each page will need to be maintained. With the creation of most new site upgrades, this is the most practical way forward and is more time efficient. As the site and its pages will appear the same to the search engines but just upgraded (i.e. the page URL is identical, but the page content and files sizes will be different.), page rank, link popularity and link saturation will be maintained and transferred to the new site. The search engines will notice a difference in page size, files sizes and file names etc. This should improve search engine interest, as they will believe that the content has been updated, as this is across the entire site it will increase robot visits and should lead to the site listings being updated. This should mean that any new pages will be picked up and indexed fairly rapidly.

2) All of the old websites pages are indexed and mapped to their counterpart pages on the new website using a 301 redirect (permanent redirect) and Mod-Rewrite. In most cases each page will have its associate page rank transferred to the new mapped page, but this is not always the case and it will take some time. Quite often search engine listings will initially drop in rank, as all of the site will appear new and then start to increase once the page rank is transferred. Some pages lose their page rank and popularity and it’s difficult to predict the reason behind this. Inbound links from 3rd party websites will be mapped to the new pages of the website using this strategy. Associated page rank will be transferred to the page but this will not be immediate and may take some time, anything from 1-3 months, depending on the linking sites importance. If possible it would be worth contacting link partners and directory sites in order to change the associated URLS. This can be a difficult and time consuming process and as a result it is sometimes more time and cost efficient to continue the sites ongoing search marketing strategy using the new URLS.

In order to help promote the indexing of new pages it will be essential to create regular XML sitemaps (Monthly or when the site has new content added.) and to submit them directly to the search engines, giving them a complete guide of the entire sites page structure.

The world today is dominated by computers and the Internet. With more and more entrepreneurs engaging in ecommerce, having a high site page rank is important.

There are a million pages on the Internet today, each one having different page ranks. Page rank, in sum, is a measure of website link popularity. Google ranks pages based on the importance and relevance of pages, though some pages can be seen in context with the reputation of the whole site. The higher the page rank is the more people who get to see the page. In general, however, a website’s homepage can have a different page rank from the “articles” pages.

Business owners and many Internet marketing professionals constantly study the algorithm being used by top search engines especially Google as most traffic comes from this site. Knowing the algorithm used to determine page rank; professionals can now create the fastest and easiest way to increase page rank.

When Internet users search for information on the Internet, they use certain words to find what they need. Internet marketers use all sorts of techniques to find these keywords and focus their efforts to increase page rank by using these terms. Some use search engine optimization methods such as the installation of Meta tags and description to help search engine spiders understand what the page is about. Others take advantage of better web design while others buy text links so as to redirect traffic towards their site. Some webmasters choose to exchange links with other sites in the same niche.

According to a survey conducted in 2005, majority of web traffic to sites come from major search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, Google and AskJeeves, with Google leading the pack and sending 37.3% of traffic to sites. This is the reason why most webmasters aim to increase Google page rank. Pages are ranked from 0 to 10 and it is said that 97% of sites are ranked between 0 to 6.

When you buy web text link as a strategy, don’t expect that you can get an immediate increase Google page rank since Google uses a secret algorithm in ranking pages. You need to ensure that the site you are linking to is relevant to your site’s content. This means that even if you have 1,000 links to different real estate sites and but your website is about music production, you can still get a page rank of 0 because your relevancy factor is low.

Targeting the right audience is the best way of increasing your page rank. As such, internet marketing is more complicated than what most people think as you will need to make your research so you have a better idea about the people who are actually using your product so you can make the necessary adjustments for your marketing strategies.

In sum, a higher Google page rank doesn’t guarantee higher traffic and sales but ranking good in search engines opens new business opportunities for these sites at the top.

In the SEO world there is an addiction. Its the green blocks that appear on the google toolbar that is know as Page Rank or PR. Due to the recent update of this counting system, which is powered by Google, its time to review the real understanding of PR. Focus on this mis-information, which, doesnt really help them get a top ranking

Lets look at the base of information that is Google PR. Much has been written and discussed. Google has used PR as a form of ranking and, for a long time is was seen as a major factor of getting results . If you search for increase page rank you will find many articles, features and opinions.

Enter 2007 and beyond, Google Page rank has created services who sell links, based on PR. Some content sites with with good PR are selling focused keyword text links to those who want links, as a way of getting a higher ranking. Google has come out saying this is essentially attempting to buy a ranking to manipulate the search results.

Also submission to search directorys is seen as a valid way of gaining backlinks .Pricing can be based on the PR of the home page. Here is a statement you need to remember:

Google ranks pages not web sites”

Remember when doing submissions to directory sites and more importantly paid listings, it’s the Page Rank of the PAGE that the link is on, that is important. Keeping in mind that it the internal page has a good ranking, it should send traffic to your site too.

It is possible for internal pages to gain a higher page rank than the home page. However keep in mind that if a site has page rank (of some amount) then it is seen as trusted source of information, both by visitors (if they are webmasters) and by Google

So is there a way to increase PR and your ranking?

Firstly dont focus on PR- in can be fickle and misleading. It is subject to Google changing the rules, which they reduced serveral times  at least once a year. If you focus on creating reasons for Google search engine spider, to come back, that by itself will help with PR and ranking.

The simplest thing you can do is change and update your pages. Keeping your pages fresh will be seen as new content and bring back the google spider. The more this occurs, the more likely your Page Rank will increase.

This is why blogs (in general) do well in natural search results because they provide regular changing information.

This may seem blunt, but Page Rank is not the key to rankings. You are best focused on building a site that is 100% search engine friendly and focusing on getting links  you cant go wrong.

Page rank of your website is just a measurement of preference it gets from the search engine. Whenever your type your website’s URL on the search engine that is normally Google you can find the page rank after finding your website on the concerned page. The higher the page rank the lesser time it takes to come before you. But even after knowing all this you may have question that why we are discussing all this at all. Yes it is essential to have a fairer page rank to let your website expose before the user more. Normally user tends to enter only those searches which come on page one or two hardly. No one bothers for surfing all the pages the search engine has searched over there. So only launching a site will work nothing for you unless it has a good page rank. Now your further query can be to know the process these engine employed while giving rank to your webpage. In fact this process is still a mystery for the whole internet expert but there are some factors assumed by these experts that should be followed to make your position better on search engine crawlers. Having a quality content and best website architecture are some of good ways that help your website better ranking. But besides it takes several other niches that should be followed continuously to maintain the page rank. Another thing the page rank of a site is a transitory attribute and it can be loosed if your fail on attempt any time. So it takes a consistent effort to maintain your position on the web always. From beginning page ranking has been much important for a websites but with the coming of lacks of website today it has become more essential to know your rank in this mess. The introduction of Google toolbar in 1995 is a big enhancement towards this issue that can be installed onto your browser to read your page rank any time. Apart from getting a greater expose, your higher page rank has also the advantage over getting advertisement revenue. Normally the advertisers rush to buy ad space only to those sites which have a higher rank on search engine. Of course they spent considerable money to get more viewers to their advertisements.

Page Rank was started to help internet users understand which page is relevant and important in a search, normally the higher the page rank the better search position you will have on Google. Page Rank is a number form 1-10 which Google gives each web page so internet users know the importance and the Google search engine knows how to position the page on the search engine results. Google thinks the page is on the web. Many people who have a website are looking at the best ways of increasing their Google page rank. An important fact to remember is that Page Rank is calculated on a webpage by webpage basis not on a website by website basis.

When talking about search engine optimization, it is almost impossible not to stumble upon the phrase: Google page rank. This term is without doubt very important to webmasters who want to obtain a good ranking and a lot of traffic, but why? Well, by simply understanding how the mathematical formula at the heart of the PageRank (PR) is calculated, any webmaster can influence its website’s Google listing.

Google page rank is one of the methods this search engine has of evaluating the relevance of a web page. The toolbar PR consists of a number between 0-10 which can be easily seen if you have the Google toolbar installed. If you don’t have this toolbar, then visiting quickpagerank.com will allow you to easily check page rank. This website is very easy to use and supplies much more information than the Google toolbar. By simply typing the URL of your site and clicking the “submit” button, you will be able to view your Google page rank, Alexa rank, whether you are listed in Dmoz or not, backlinks showing in major search engines and results coming from AltaVista and the entire web.

PR is short for the Google page rank which is calculated by Google and can range from 0.15 to billions. It represents a “vote” of appreciation or support for a certain website from all the rest existing on the web. It therefore can be zero or a very high number given by the number of links pointing to a site from all the rest. The formula from the original Google paper looks like this: “PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))” and the symbols represent the following: A – the page for which we want to check page rank, T1…Tn – the pages which are pointing to it through links, C(A) – the number of links coming from page A and pointing to other sites and d – damping factor usually set at 0.85. As you can see the calculus is quite difficult and this is because it doesn’t stop here.

It seems quite impossible to calculate how exactly Google page rank is assigned to a certain page because the PR of a page depends on the PR of all the pages pointing to it. This leads to circle calculations as the PR of those pages pointing to let’s say page “A” also have to be calculated and this is done depending on other sites with their own PR. In addition, Google reevaluates websites periodically re-indexing new links and new pages, all updated and better optimized. Its job is quite difficult, but thank god it’s a machine that’s doing it and not a human!

So, the conclusion is that Google page rank is too difficult to analyze. Entire pages have been written on its algorithms and a lot of intelligent minds have struggled to find out the undisclosed mathematical intricacies of the PR. All we know are the simple facts that Google listings are influenced by links, among which one way links prove to be more efficient. Therefore everyone strives to optimize their websites as much as possible for keyword searches which are performed by Google spiders all the time. After doing their best, webmasters turn to check page rank.

A really interesting aspect related to Google page rank is that Google’s listings don’t always show the sites which have the highest PR in their top findings. This is a puzzling fact. To check page rank has become an undisputable habit for webmaster that do their best to promote their online business and obtain more traffic. Sometimes, their main purpose for optimization is to obtain a high Google page rank, but perhaps this is not the perfect approach for Google’s ranking system. Of course, PR is very important, but since we don’t know for sure how to obtain it, perhaps it would be wiser to do our best to improve website quality and promote them by using only the given facts. So, don’t forget that popularity is the key to success! And, after investing in quality, to best analyze your efforts, you should also constantly check page rank and see how things are going from Google’s point of view.