Google’s PageRank and Search Engine Optimization

This is a guest post from my friends over at freelance seo thanks for the article Doctor!

Among search engines, Google is king. To be listed high in the Google search results all but guarantees a website will have a lot of visitors or hits. In order to determine the order of page listings, Google uses a page ranking system, known as PageRank.

Google PageRank system is a complex algorithm; Google does not make public all of the factors that go into computing PageRank because they want to protect the integrity of the system. The patent on PageRank is held by Stanford University and exclusively licensed to Google. Other search engines have their own page ranking system therefore a high page rank on one search site does not guarantee an high page rank on Google.

But to get a high page rank Google has to recognize a page as credible. Google uses several different complex variables to determine the validity and importance of a website. Many of the hundreds of variables are not easily controllable or even understood by most people however; one of the most important factors in making the PageRank determination is the number of links that point to the keywords of a website. And page links, are one factor that can be somewhat controlled by a site owner. Simply put the more sites that point to the keywords within a site page, the higher that pages, PageRank will be with Google, based on those keywords.

Still, even within that scenario there are even more variables to consider.

• The inbound links receive a weighted score, the higher the weight, the more valuable the link. So an inbound link from a highly ranked site is more valuable than in inbound link from a lower ranked site.
• The sites keywords that receive inbound links must show some variation. Repeatedly having the same keywords linked, may send a red flag to Google that the links are less than credible.
• The PageRank of a site is weighted P1 to P10, it is believed that p10 is the highest rank although Google does not share this information.
• If you receive an inbound link from a P10 site you share the weight of that sites link with all of the other sites that have received a link from that site.