Google PageRank

Google’s “PageRank” is a link analysis algorithm used by Google that assigns a numerical weighting to each web page. Its purpose is to “measure” the relative “importance” of each page. Google states on its website “Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.”

In simple terms, 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 PageRanks of the 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.

The PageRank assigned by Google is a numeric value from 0 to 10. The scale is logarithmic.

The PageRank given to a web page is influenced by factors other than the number and PageRank of incoming links. However, Google does not publish much information about such factors, presumably in order to prevent manipulation of a page’s PageRank.

PageRank is therefore very important in search engine positioning. Many search engine experts do not agree with this but I believe that they are wrong. PageRank has always been a key part of Google’s “system” – ignore it at your peril.

If PageRank is so important, what can you do to improve your pages’ rankings? The simple answer is to build a large number of high quality links to your websites. I will deal with the best ways to do this in a future posting.

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