What Is Google Page Rank and Why Is It Important for SEO?

 What is the Difference between page Rank and Domain Rank?

When a user searches online, he is likely to click and visit the first website found on search results. Why bother scrolling down or going to the next page when all you need could be found on a single site? But how credible, reliable or authoritative is a website? How can a user gauge the brevity of the information provided? It is through a page rank (PR), of course. This refers to an independent measure of Google’s perception of a single web page. Unlike other factors that affect SEO, it does not depend on a search phrase.

How is page rank calculated then?

One of the primary elements that affect a site’s PR is the number of inbound links. Apparently, Google considers them a vote of confidence, a two thumbs-up for having relevant and useful content. But how come a similar site ranks higher when it only has one link, while the other one has four? This is because the page rank of the websites linking back also matters in the whole equation. If that single site has a PR of 9, it has more weight than all 4 links each having a PR of 2 combined. The best way a website can get higher page rank is through search engine optimisation, managed by an affordable SEO consultant.

What does each number in the ranking mean?

Most new sites or those with only a handful of inbound links usually get a PR between zero and three. Websites that are often visited and get a fair number of other sites linking back gets a 4 or 5. Six (6) is often afforded to very popular sites that have many quality links. Big company websites or those owned by A-list bloggers would get between a 7 and 10.

How does a website owner determine his own page rank?

The quickest and easiest way would be to download Google Toolbar, which provides access to a variety of search functionality, tools and gadgets. Since its first release in December 11, 2000, it has evolved and improved. When installed on Mozilla Firefox, the PR would be readily seen at the top right corner of a browser window.

You can also download other tools that can determine and report a website’s page rank.

With all the changes in search engine optimisation and its process, it is believed that page ranking would hardly matter in 2013 for the following reasons:

• It has become just one of the 200 ranking factors that Google uses to gauge a site’s popularity. When it first came out, it was actually used to determine a webpage’s position in search results.
• Because Google’s algorithm has become tougher, inbound links with higher PR is no longer enough because they have to be relevant as well. Even with a page rank of 10, if the link is unrelated to the website it’s linking to, no improvements will be made.
• When PR links are earned the unnatural way, a website owner risks losing his websites ranking.

Despite these reasons, PR is still relevant to SEO because it remains to be one of the ranking signals that Google uses. Therefore, maintaining a high PR can still help a website find its way to the first page of search results. Combined with the expertise of an affordable SEO consultant, it won’t be impossible to achieve.

What’s more, a lot of bloggers still prefer to write or link to sites with high PR, which would still result to more traffic and links. Quality page rank would also convince more people and on-line users to link to a particular site more often, increasing a webpage’s popularity and reputation. In the end, a site still gets optimized with the help of page ranking. Link Spider offers Affordable Small Business SEO and is a Freelance Search Engine Optimisation Consultant.