PageRank and How it Can Affect Your Website Search Results

Let’s start with what “PageRank” refers to. According to Wikipedia, PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page (hence the name Page-Rank[5]) and Sergey Brin in 1996[6] as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine.[7] Sergey Brin had the idea that information on the web could be ordered in a hierarchy by “link popularity”: a page is ranked higher as there are more links to it. It was co-authored by Rajeev Motwani and Terry Winograd. The first paper about the project, describing PageRank and the initial prototype of the Google search engine, was published in 1998:[4] shortly after, Page and Brin founded Google Inc., the company behind the Google search engine. While just one of many factors that determine the ranking of Google search results, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of Google’s web search tools.[9]

The Google Toolbar’s PageRank feature displays a visited page’s PageRank as a whole number between 0 and 10. The most popular websites have a PageRank of 10. The least have a PageRank of 0. Google has not disclosed the specific method for determining a Toolbar PageRank value, which is to be considered only a rough indication of the value of a website.

PageRank measures the number of sites that link to a particular page.[23] The PageRank of a particular page is roughly based upon the quantity of inbound links as well as the PageRank of the pages providing the links. The algorithm also includes other factors, such as the size of a page, the number of changes, the time since the page was updated, the text in headlines and the text in hyperlinked anchor texts.[8] —————————————————————————————————————————————————-

With this information in mind, it’s clear that link generation is a crucial part to being found online. But buyer beware, literally. A recent blog from Matt Cutts, Head of Webspam at Google, advises against selling links that pass PageRank. It violates the Google quality guidelines, which Google takes very seriously. With the smart technology behind Google, it can get tipped off pretty easily of those sites who are selling/buying links are intended to manipulate PageRank unnaturally.

In the end, the best way to be found is by doing it with morale. Go out there and get links that actually make sense to connect to your website- i.e. directories, blogs, like-minded companies, etc…

If you need help with link building in a natural way, which will positively affect your PageRank, contact Downlifter for more information.