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Friday, March 30, 2007

What Is PageRank

What is PageRank? Well to start with, it is a trademark of Google, *snort* who else?

A PageRank results from a "ballot" among all the other pages on the World Wide Web about how important a page is. A hyperlink to a page counts as a vote of support.

The PageRank of a page is defined recursively and depends on the number and PageRank metric of all pages that link to it ("incoming links"). A page that is linked to by many pages with high PageRank receives a high rank itself. If there are no links to a web page there is no support for that page.

If you'd really like to read the algorithm particulars, go HERE

The maximum amount of PageRank in a site increases as the number of pages in the site increases

The only way to increase the maximum is to add more inbound links and/or increase the number of pages in the site.

While I recommend creating and adding new pages to increase a site's total PageRank so that it can be channeled to specific pages, there are certain types of pages that should not be added. These are pages that are all identical or very nearly identical and are known as cookie-cutters. Google considers them to be spam and they can trigger an alarm that causes the pages, and possibly the entire site, to be penalized. Pages full of good content are a must.

Outbound links are a drain on a site's total PageRank. They leak PageRank. To counter the drain, try to ensure that the links are reciprocated. Because of the PageRank of the pages at each end of an external link, and the number of links out from those pages, reciprocal links can gain or lose PageRank. You need to take care when choosing where to exchange links.

To a spider, www.domain.com/, domain.com/, www.domain.com/index.html and domain.com/index.html are different urls and, therefore, different pages. Surfers arrive at the site's home page whichever of the urls are used, but spiders see them as individual urls, and it makes a difference when working out the PageRank. It is better to standardize the url you use for the site's home page. Otherwise each url can end up with a different PageRank, whereas all of it should have gone to just one url.

And after all of that info has crossed your eyes, you can check your site's PageRank HERE. And you can even grab Google's handy code to put the PageRank live on your site!

10 Comments:

  1. Jim Thompson said...
    I'm consumed with curiosity--actually, about two things. First, how do you get any writing of your own done with all those bloggs to administer. Second, I use the same template for all my pages on The Dubious Web Presence of J. L. Thompson-Writer. Will Google count those as cookie-cutter pages?
    Bonnie S. Calhoun said...
    No Jim, the spiders can tell the difference between templates and content...Spam sites use exact same content!
    Rodney Olsen said...
    No big surprise that Google gets a 10/10 for their page ranking. :)
    Roberto said...
    Hi Bonnie,
    As usual I recur to your clear cut instructions and suggestions for some kind of answer to my query. I would like to know exactly when my blog would qualify for any kind of page rank from Google as I have been blogging on my history blog for 8 months now with regular posting and, judging from what I've seen in some blogs, my blog has quite a bit of original content and shows dedication. I checked my page rank and it shows "0". How come and how can I get Google to review my blog?
    Thanks for your help in advance.
    http://thesilverpeoplechronicle.blogspot.com
    Bonnie S. Calhoun said...
    Hi Roberto,

    Thank you for the comment on my How Can I blog.

    I looked over you blog, and did a Technorati ranking on you. The reason you have no PageRank is because there is only 3 blogs linking to you.

    For PageRank, content isn't the major issue. Go back and read my post again. Your PageRank is decided by the number of "incoming" links. That means how many people have a link on their site pointing to your blog.

    In other words...PageRanking is how popular you are out on the internet. The more people that link to you, the more popular you are...the higher your PageRank.

    I would say that you need at least 100 people linking to you before you will start to register PageRank. Join blogrolls of people who have ideas similar to yours, or that are doing activities that you like...and go visit a lot of people with similar interests and comment on their blogs!
    Anonymous said...
    I have links to eBay auctions on my page as part of an affiliate program. Will these reduce my page rank ?

    Thanks for your help.

    Sigmar
    http://battlereporter.blogspot.com
    Bonnie S. Calhoun said...
    Hi sigmar,

    I would like to tell you that I know that answer, but with the PageRank fiascos going on with Google right now, the answer to that is up in the air. I would keep Googling about PagRank and catch the latest news about it
    Kenneth Lee said...
    I read that Google now no longer considers unrelated links to count towards PR, but there are also sources that claim this is not true. What is your thought on this, Roberto?
    James said...
    Very good detailed explanation about PageRank. PR plays a very important role for every sites today. It is used to measure how useful the site is because higher the PR, better the site.
    Nice sharing.
    The Wealth, Success, Happiness and All Good Things Blog said...
    Hi there, I am new to this and have found this post and the other few I have been scanning very helpful. I was directed to you whilst looking at questions on www.google.com/support - keep up the good work and I will be following it!

    Debbie.

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