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What is this Google PageRank? Everybody is using it, does it really work and how can you perform to get a better PageRank.

One of the most important algorithms ever developed for the Web, the PageRank technology is only 1 factor of many within the Search Engine Results Page (SERP’s) algorithm. With billions of existing pages and millions more generated every day, the search issue in the Web is more complex than you probably think it is. PageRank, helps to keep our search clean and efficient.

But how is it actually done? How does Google PageRank work, which factors do have an impact on it and which don’t? And what do we really know about PageRank?

In this article I try to give you the facts as I know them to be. 

How Does PageRank Work?

1. PageRank is only one of numerous methods Google uses to determine a page’s relevance or importance.
2. Google calculates pages PRs permanently, but we see the update once every few months (Google Toolbar).
3. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. Google looks not only at the sheer volume of votes; among 100 other aspects it also analyzes the page that casts the vote.
4. PageRank is based on incoming links, but not just on the number of them - relevance and quality are important.
5. If you had a web page with a PR8 and had 1 link on it, the site linked to would get a fair amount of PR value. But, if you had 100 links on that page, each individual link would only get a fraction of the value. If you had a web page with a PR8 and had 1 link on it, the site linked to would get a fair amount of PR value. But, if you had 100 links on that page, each individual link would only get a fraction of the value.
6. Each Page Rank level is progressively harder to reach. PageRank is believed to be calculated on a logarithmic scale.
7. Not all links weight the same when it comes to PR.
8. The equation that calculates a page’s PageRank is PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn)). Now you know, it is not just science but also MATH!
9. Ranking popularity considers site age, backlink relevancy and backlink duration. PageRank does NOT.
10. Bad incoming links don’t have impact on Page Rank.
11. PageRank does not rank web sites as a whole, but is determined for each page individually within that site.
12. Each inbound link is important to the overall total. Except banned sites, which don’t count.
13. PageRank values don’t range from 0 to 10. PageRank is a floating-point number.
14. Content is not taken into account when PageRank is calculated.

Impact on Google PageRank

1. Frequent content updates don’t improve Page Rank automatically. Content is not part of the PR calculation.
2. High Page Rank doesn’t mean high search ranking.
3. DMOZ and Yahoo! Listings don’t improve Page Rank automatically.
4. .edu and .gov-sites don’t improve Page Rank automatically.
5. Sub-directories don’t necessarily have a lower Page Rank than root-directories.
6. Wikipedia links CAN improve PageRank but only when information is accurate.
7. Links marked with nofollow-attribute don’t contribute to Google PageRank as they are not indexed.
8. Efficient internal onsite linking has an impact on PageRank.
9. Related high ranked web-sites count stronger. But: “a page with high PageRank may actually pass you less if it has more links, because it’s spread too thin.”
10. Links from and to high quality related sites have an impact on Page Rank.
11. Multiple votes to one link from the same page cost as much as a single vote.

Google PageRank: Theory & Scientific Background

• A Survey of Google’s PageRank
  Calculation of Page Rank, Page Rank Implementation, Inbound Links, Outbound Links, Number of Pages, PageRank Distribution, Additional Factors and more.
• The Lineal Algebra Behind Google
  The $25,000,000,000 Eigenvector - The Linear Algebra Behind Google. Google’s success derives in large part from its PageRank algorithm, which ranks the importance of webpages according to an eigenvector of a weighted link matrix. Analysis of the PageRank formula provides a wonderful
  applied topic for a linear algebra course.
• The Intelligent Surfer: Probabilistic Combination of Link and Content Information in
  PageRank
  We propose to improve Page-Rank by using a more intelligent surfer, one that is guided by a probabilistic model of the relevance of a page to a query. Efficient execution of our algorithm at query time is made possible by precomputing at crawl time (and thus once for all queries) the necessary
  terms.
• Topic-Sensitive PageRank
  To yield more accurate search results, we propose computing a set of PageRank vectors, biased using a set of representative topics, to capture more accurately the notion of importance with respect to a particular topic. By using these (precomputed) biased PageRank vectors to generate query-specific
  importance scores for pages at query time, we show that we can generate more accurate rankings than with a single, generic PageRank vector.
• Method for node ranking in a linked database
  A method assigns importance ranks to nodes in a linked database, such as any database of documents containing citations, the world wide web or any other hypermedia database. The rank assigned to a
  document is calculated from the ranks of documents citing it. In addition, the rank of a document is calculated from a constant representing the probability that a browser through the database will randomly jump to the document. By Page and Lawrence.
• How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web’s Haystack
  Mathematical Background of Google PageRank. By David Austin, Grand Valley State University
• Wikipedia: PageRank
  Mathematical Theory Behind Google PageRank

Google PageRank Tools & Services

• Google PageRank Inspector.
  Google PageRank inspector is PHP scripts that can seek all of your website, include out linked page or not, and display Pagerank value for each of your website pages. New pages linked by high pagerank pages can be indexed in google quickly and have higher keyword rank in google search.
• Google’s PageRank - Calculator
  The results produced by the calculator indicate each page’s PageRank share and are not equivalent to the values in the Google toolbar.
• Webmastereyes
  Visual PageRank View. The results will show the page given along with the PageRank of each link on that page. You also have the option to show “nofollow” and external links.
• Smart PageRank
  Checks PageRank from multiple datacenters and sends emails automatically if PageRank is updated.
• Google PageRank Notifier
  “This script will send you an email whenever the PageRank of the given page changes. PageRank is taken from the Google Toolbar “API” and is updated once an hour.”
• Google PageRank™ Checker (registration required)
  You can monitor site’s PageRank via RSS and you can also be notified via e-mail when the PageRank has been changed.
• Dig PageRank
  Checks the current Page Rank of a page in over 100 Google data centers.
• Live PageRank Check
  The Live PageRank value may be used as an indicator of what will show when Google decides to export the PageRank values to the Google Toolbar. The Live PageRank calculator gives you the current PageRank value in the Google index, not just the snapshot that is displayed in the toolbar. Google updates its internal PageRank value continuously as the web changes and their index is updated. Only
  once every third month or so this value is exported to be displayed in the Google Toolbar.
• Page Rank Widget for Mac OS X.
  Llittle Widget finds the Google Page Rank for any URL by calculating the checksum and requesting the PR from Google’s servers.
• Google PageRank Prediction
  The tool analyzes the popularity of a given web-site and tries to predict its future Google PageRank.
• PageRank Checker
  Shows PageRank of your backlinks.

It has to be noted that PageRank on its own does not get you higher in SERP’s.

One has to ensure that you are actively building links, updating site content, increasing traffic as well as have a steady flow of traffic to your site. Usually the flow of traffic to your site is the hardest thing to achieve, the more unique your business and products the more chance you have of grabbing the natural search result.

One thing that can increase traffic to your site quickly is PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) advertising. The main reson for this is the prominence and placement of the links in Googles SERP’s. However, this has cost implecations.

“Why ?” you ask, well let me explain.

• Lets say you want to bid on a word in Google, lets say its “Web design”
• lets agree on a ficticious cost for this word per click, something realistic like 50p per click.
• we will have a daily budget of £20

Ok, so this means that everytime someone types in “web design” as a Google search term, our link will be displayed to the user. If 50p is the highest cost paid per click, then our link will be the first link to appear on the page.

Then it follows, that if its the first link, then you will get a fair few clicks from users wanting to know more about your services. Every time a user clicks on the advert (your link as paid for in Google), you will be charged 50p, even if the user does not go on and purchase your services. You are paying for “Lookers” who end up on your site and do not become “Bookers”. Not forgetting that you have a budget of £20 a day, which means that after 40 clicks from users your advert will no longer appear as you have hit your daily budget.

The main reason you have a website is to turn “Lookers into Bookers”, otherwise you will not make a penny from your website.

Therefore, it can become sucessfull online, you need to have a cleaver website, good SEO as well as a strategy for PPC. And after all that you need to have a product that people are interested in, otherwise you will get the visitors to the site, maybe even pay for them to get there and then end up with not selling them anything.

If you would like to know more then please feel free to contact me or drop a comment to this article.