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The confusion still weaves its way slowly
around the Internet about Google's PageRank™
and exactly how it affects your website.
Many people are under the belief, that a
high PageRank will give you high rankings
for your website. You couldn't be further
from the truth in actual fact. Below I have
listed some basics about PageRank for those
who think otherwise:
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PageRank is one of over 100 assessed
features of a webpage for order of
ranking.
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Google combines PageRank with
sophisticated text-matching techniques
to deliver relevant pages.
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The higher the PageRank is not
necessarily the higher your website
ranking.
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PageRank and links are not the same -
unpopular to some beliefs.
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PageRank does not improve solely by more
links pointing at your website.
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Important high quality websites will
receive a higher PageRank.
Let's
discuss each in a little more detail.
PageRank is one of over 100 assessed
features of a webpage for order of ranking
Those who are stuck on the theory that
PageRank means everything; really need to
have a good long look at this statement,
that Google supply on their website. You can
make a website with a PR1 onwards rank on
the front-page for given keyword terms. What
some confuse this with are competitive
keyword phrases. Something like "search
engine optimization" or "web host" for
example. Front page listings are not
achieved by high PageRank’s alone, this
being one of those well circulated myths of
the Internet. Don't confuse PageRank with
relevant links pointing at your website and
other optimisation techniques. Links and
PageRank are only related by the fact
"relevant" links will generally improve your
PageRank.
Google combines PageRank with sophisticated
text-matching techniques to deliver relevant
pages
A higher PageRank does not necessarily make
your website more relevant for related
terms. The information contained in that
site must still be well written and
described within each page to reflect
relevancy. For example, you could have two
websites; one about "red doors" and another
about "green doors". The website about red
doors can have a PR10, but when you search
for "green doors" you will come up with a
website that has a PR1 possibly because it
is more relevant within the written text for
that phrase. Now if you typed in "doors",
then you could come up with completely
different websites again because of page
text relevancy vs. link popularity and
PageRank. A well written page to target
exactly what you are selling is the secret
to targeted traffic, not PageRank.
The higher the PageRank does not
necessarily mean a higher website ranking
PageRank is only used by Google, that's the
first thing to remember. Google provides 50%
of website traffic currently, though be
aware, sticking all your eggs in one basket
is just asking for trouble. The more links
pointing at your website increases your
websites’ relevancy, but not necessarily the
PageRank, if the links are not from like
pages.
PageRank and links are not the same
- unpopular to some beliefs
You need to understand that they are not the
same thing. PageRank is Google’s measure of
importance. Links are the Internets measure
of importance of your website. Google will
tell you this themselves. Still unconvinced?
Get the information straight from the
horses’ mouth:
http://www.google.com.au/technology.
PageRank does not improve solely by
more links pointing at your website
What many forget, is this; PageRank and how
many links you have are not related at all.
As Google themselves state, it is the
importance of a page that links to you that
gives your website an improved PageRank. You
can have two identical websites; the first
has 1,000,000 links pointing at it from all
over the web and has gained a PR6; the
second has 1,000 links pointing at it from
like information websites and directory
listings and also has a PR6. You can now see
the difference in work effort to gain the
exact same PageRank from Google.
Important high quality websites will
receive a higher PageRank.
This is the truest statement that exists. If
you’re a Google nut and persist in having
all your eggs in the Google basket, then you
need to substantiate relevancy of your links
and not quantity. Quantity means something
for other search engines, not Google. Google
would prefer 100 quality links from like or
similar websites, with a high PR, than a
million non-related websites. It just means
more work for them in the end. If you have
two Internet Directories with a PR8 each,
and they link to one another, then Google
would assess that as more important than the
thousand or so links pointing to the
Internet Directories from personal websites
about cars, boats, computers and so on. But;
other engines would use those thousand and
so other links to establish relevancy. Don't
forget about the other engines.
Let's listen to Google
Google themselves state, "PageRank relies on
the uniquely democratic nature of the web by
using its vast link structure as an
indicator of an individual page's value. In
essence, Google interprets a link from page
A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page
B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer
volume of votes, or links a page receives;
it also analyses the page that casts the
vote. Votes cast by pages that are
themselves "important" weigh more heavily
and help to make other pages "important."
Important, high-quality sites receive a
higher PageRank, which Google remembers each
time it conducts a search. Of course,
important pages mean nothing to you if they
don't match your query. So, Google combines
PageRank with sophisticated text-matching
techniques to find pages that are both
important and relevant to your search.
Google goes far beyond the number of times a
term appears on a page and examines all
aspects of the page's content (and the
content of the pages linking to it) to
determine if it's a good match for your
query." (Full information available at
http://www.google.com.au/technology)
So in conclusion, listen to fact not
fiction. The professionals are the people
with the correct and factual information
that you need. Avoid those unprofessional
people with little knowledge. Once money is
paid, for an Internet service or product, it
can be extremely difficult to recover lost
funds. This information is mostly released
from Google and other search engines, so if
in doubt, go directly to the engines and ask
questions. They are generally more than
willing to help you with your enquiries.
Note that this may take a while with the
volume of emails and correspondence received
be these search engines daily.
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