As a great many of you were confused by my post on Google’s PageRank update late last month I thought I’d put together a very basic guide on what it is, and what it can mean for you. If I get chance I might even write a follow-up on how to improve yours (got to find something to fill my blog while taking part in NaBloPoMo!)
PageRank is Google’s special algorithm used for figuring out relevance of pages — that is, the higher the PageRank the more relevant and the more ‘weight’ a page is likely to carry. It is named after Larry Page, one of Google’s founders, and not the web pages it analyses. It is a trademark, so I should probably be sticking some ™s in here somewhere, but let’s assume that all is well and we all know that Google owns the world the term.
PageRank works based on the assumption that when you are linking to a page, you are effectively vouching for its importance. The more links in to a page, the higher the chance that the page has decent content. Of course, this isn’t the only factor — because gaining lots of links is a relatively simple process — so Google uses the rank of the page with the link as a guide to just how good it is. That means that a link from an “important” page (with a high PageRank) is more attractive to webmasters than a handful of links from less “important” pages (with low PageRank). To get a PageRank for your own site, you would aim to get links from high-ranking websites. This allows more authority (or “link juice”) to be passed on to you. (Note: PR0 = lowest, PR10 = highest)
The PageRank that you may see discussed on the Internet, and that appears in the Google toolbar/third party extensions like SearchStatus, is a simplified ‘whole number’ version of a pages actual rank. Although the precise method of calculation for this toolbar rank hasn’t been published by Google, it is pretty well known amongst SEOers that the value is likely to be out of date because of the infrequency that the rank is updated. This uncertainty behind the whole thing leaves some of people sceptical of its value, and some even refer to it as “green fairy dust”. However, it doesn’t matter which way you look at it, because PageRank IS used as an indicator of quality by so many advertisers, directories and so forth.
So there you have it: it’s all just a silly number. And, if you blog for the sake of it, PageRank really isn’t that important to you.
(Although I’ve gleamed a lot of this information from hundreds of pages over the years, the Cre8asite Forums are an invaluable resource of tips/advice on Google PageRank as well as other SEO information and helpful stuff. Start there if you want to know more about anything I’ve mentioned in this post.)
02 Nov at 1:39 pm
PageRank = Popularity contest for the internet.
02 Nov at 2:04 pm
WOW, you kept your word and produced a awesome quality article. Well done Gem! Great article, I didnt knwo it was named after Mr Page himself. I also agree with louise! PR is a popularity contest, one i personally enjoy taking part in! haha!
02 Nov at 2:06 pm
PS your time is wrong on your site, remember the clocks went back an hour. Its only 1 o’clock, :( and i’m tied damn college! I git the place in the web design course BTW! entitles me a gaurentee to a HND or HNC in web design and development if i pass! (i should its relatively easy, but a good course)
02 Nov at 2:32 pm
Here’s an interesting chart: http://www.scorpionagency.com/img/prlinkchart.jpg I’m not sure how accurate is it though. I don’t really care about PageRank and I rarely even look at it (in the toolbar). With mine being 1/10 and all. :)
02 Nov at 2:59 pm
LMAO @ “link juice” (for some reason reminds me of “pimp juice”) Awesome article as always Jem, very informative for those of us who had never even heard of PageRank. The link to Cre8asite is very helpful as well, I only browsed (I’m at work) but I’ll definetly take a more in depth look at it.
02 Nov at 4:04 pm
Funny thing is with pagerank, the second I started caring about it, the second it went down. Good post. Fair review is now a 4 :)
02 Nov at 7:44 pm
As far as ranks go, 1 should be the best, so I was quite confused at first. I finally got around to checking my PR, and I didn’t have one. It may be -5 for all I know.
02 Nov at 7:50 pm
I’ve got no idea how to check what it is without the toolbar (which I don’t have installed), so I don’t really care what mine is. It’d be nice to have it high, although I don’t really aim to get my site #1 on Google etc. anyway :P
02 Nov at 9:41 pm
Or you could just be like me and not give a hoot about any page rank or visitors and just keep your sites up cause you want to, lol. That is what I do. My site, Book Craze, gets no visitors & that is fine with me. My web design site is half dead due to my illness but I refuse to close it. Amarantine & Hev’s Signature Tags are the only sites that get visitors. Though Amarantine, Book Craze, & Hev’s Signature Tags all get updated the most. But when I started in 2001 I didn’t set out to get links and visits I wanted to have fun. That was my goal. So I have no idea what my page rank is and I really don’t care. I never look, I don’t have counters or anything of that sort. I loved the article though, Jem. I may have gotten off track up there, sorry. I understand the page ranking, though I think too many people put to much stock into it. Personal web pages should be for fun not a popularity contest as Louise said. But that is my opinion.
03 Nov at 12:05 am
@ Grant, its spelt jem ^^ :D
03 Nov at 5:02 am
I’m not even going to look at my PageRank, because it’s probably dreadfully low! But at least I now know what it means! Yay for Jem and informative articles! Now, just release some Jem PSDs, so that I can make a layout of them…. yes, that makes no sense, but I’m tired. :P
03 Nov at 8:32 am
Informative as always, Jem. I do know about PageRank but I don’t really care about those stuff =P
03 Nov at 1:59 pm
ahh i’ve heard of the writing thing quite a few times now.. i dont’ quite understand it though. anyways.. good luck with it?
03 Nov at 2:14 pm
I thought I knew what it was but I was wondering ;3 thanks Ms. Jemma!
06 Nov at 8:34 pm
@Kris Yea i don’t know why a spelt it like that, if you have a look through this site i have a very inconsistent dictionary installed on firefox ROFL i seem to misspell allot but i think its more my typing than the fact i can’t spell.
09 Nov at 3:40 am
Hiiii. I’ve never commented before, but i’ve been reading your blog for a while now. (and you’re actually the person i discovered the Q*bee from :) Anyways, back on topic, i never understood how google search results worked. So this was pretty awesome. I love all your articles, i learn more from you than i do from classes i swear ^^ Cheers!