What is Pagerank?

Pagerank is the value google assigns to your website page. It is not the value of the website as a lot of people think but the value of a certain webpage. Your site can be a pr4 but have lots of pr0 or non-ranked pages.

Google Pagerank is named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google, and is how google determines a pages value or authority. Google does this through a complex mathematical forumla which they keep a closely guarded secret. SEO’s have figured out a lot about the formula and Google has said some things about it but the exact formula is a secret.

Pagerank is determined by a lot of factors but the most important is links. The more links, the higher your pagerank. But it is not simply the quantity of your links but also the quality. Getting one link from a pr7 or higher website will increase your page rank faster and better than a lot of links from pr2 or 3 websites.

By linking to a site, you are in essence voting for it and telling Google “hey this is a good site! It’s trustworthy!” The more votes a page gets, the higher the PR. Moreover, Google also uses a thing called “trustfactor” which is one step above Pagerank. No one knows a lot about this but it assumes that Google also considered who the page belongs too. For example, me and Stanford both have pr8 pages. We both link to your site but Standford’s link counts more because it has a higher trust. Google assumes “it’s stanford and they would only link the highest quality sites” whereas mr. random might not be so judicious in choosing his links. This is part of the reason why .edu and .gov links are so coveted.

Is pagerank important though? Yes and no. Assume everything is equal and site A has a PR4 while site B has a pr3. In a search result, A would rank higher. But many times pr0, 1, 2, 3, 4 sites outrank higher ranked sites in a search because the other sites have more keyworded backlinks. (Next topic) But pagerank is important because pages with high pr get indexed fasted, move up the serps quicker, and convey more authority so tend to show up in more search results, even if its not in the top spot.

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3 Responses to “What is Pagerank?”

  1. dizzed.com on March 17th, 2009 3:56 pm

    SEO Advice for You…

    Pagerank is the value google assigns to your website page. It is not the value of the website as a lot of people think but the value of a certain webpage….

  2. Jared on March 22nd, 2009 10:38 pm

    Google doesn’t assign your website/page pagerank…

    Pagerank (which is now a ‘little 2006′) is a # given by external sources/sites - as a ‘rough guide’ only.

    Google doesn’t use these external PR scores in its algo… they use their own (which none of will ever know)

    my 2c

    Jared

  3. Internal SEO | SEO Advice for You on May 4th, 2009 1:23 pm

    [...] – Interlink your site as much as possible. This helps build links to your posts, helps spread pagerank among your sites, and allows Google to crawl through your site [...]

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