The Wikipedia free encyclopaedia defines PageRank as, quote “PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references”.
Google describes PageRank as, quote “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important".
PageRank is an index used by Google that ranks both the popularity and importance of a website or web page. Google uses a PageRank scale starting at PR0 which is the lowest grade and PR10 which is the highest grade. One can view the PageRank system applied by Google as a voting system for the most popular and important websites on the internet and the subsequent allocation of a rank or score to each website and web page.
Google’s first component of a PageRank score for a website or web page is to determine how popular that website or webpage is on the internet. This is determined by the number of links or hyperlinks (same thing) that refer or point the user to that webpage from other pages. Links or hyperlinks that are placed on web pages that point or refer users to other web pages housed on the internet are called ‘Inbound Links’. Google searches and totals the number of ‘inbound links’ on a website or web page and assigns a certain rank according to the number of links found. From a Search Engine Optimization standpoint, inbound links are actually a form of free advertising and produce web traffic to the website or web page that is pointed or referred to.
Google’s second component of a PageRank score for a website or web page is to determine how important that website or webpage is on the internet. This second component is a subjective analysis, as it is solely Google’s opinion of importance, even though Google applies mathematical algorithms to calculate the results. Here the spiders (which are mathematical algorithms) search for keywords and or key phrases in the ‘anchor text’ of links on websites and web pages.
The spider then searches the internet to calculate how many of these keywords and or key word phrases are scattered throughout the internet. The Google spider algorithm then assigns a PageRank score to the website or webpage (containing the anchored test keyword or phrase) according to the total number of keywords and or keyword phrases found on the internet. For example the anchored text ‘Ferrari’ would probably be more important than for the word ‘Lexus’. So the website or webpage that has the anchored text word ‘Ferrari’ will therefore be more important than ‘Lexus’ according to Google.
An anchor text link is different to a normal link or hyperlink as it involves ‘html’ to create it. A link or hyperlink is only the ‘http’ web address of the site it is pointing to. An anchor text link is often referred to as a ‘href’ link where the ‘http’ address is part of the ‘html’ but it also includes the validated popular keywords and or keyword phrases in it. For example “Google Blog”. The ‘http://www.blogger.com’ is the hyperlink or link and the words ‘Google Blog’ are the anchored text.
The Google spider then only scans the anchored text on the page, as it is part of the ‘html’ and then indexes that phrase or keyword to see how often those words appear on the internet. This is the same process used for ranking a website or webpage by the Google spiders on the internet. Therefore the more keywords and or keyword phrases that are counted the more importance that website or web page is through the eyes of Google.
The combination of the number of inbound links found on a page including the total number of ‘anchored text’ keywords and or keyword phrases found by the Google spiders is then used to calculate and assign a PageRank score to that website or web page. PageRank, from a search engine optimization perspective, is only one of many factors needed to produce top search engine rankings on the internet and too many people place too much importance and time on attaining a high PageRank.
Summary
PageRank tells how important a website and or web page is, according to Google, compared to other websites and web pages on the internet.
PageRank is one of many components of Google’s website and or web page ranking system and is certainly not the most important.
A high Google PageRank does not automatically guarantee a high search ranking result for any particular keyword and or keyword phrase.
The anchor text of a link is often far more important than the high PageRank that a website and or web page has been assigned.
To ensure the effective and successful search engine optimization of your website and web pages you must commit to the disciplined SEO practice of first validating the popularity of your keywords and keyword phrases using a reliable Keyword Selector Tool. Then consistently use those keyword and keyword phrases in all titles, Meta tags, Meta tag descriptions in the original unique content that you create.
Finally hand submit every single link to the search engines that was created by you as a result of your unique and original blog post, forum post, articles and press release submissions. These SEO techniques are a far more powerful way to achieve first page Google ranking for your website and or web pages than only achieving a good PageRank. |
