August 23rd, 2010 by Nick

Pagerank is an algorithm created by Larry Page and licensed exclusively to Google. As someone with an interest in getting onto search engine results pages in order to better promote your product or service, you’ll want to know something about how pagerank works. You might also want to know whether any of the dodgy methods you’ve heard whispered about in dark corners for using it to improve SEO actually work. What would a good SEO company tell you about pagerank? There are, after all, foolish ideas in every sphere of human enterprise. We’ve prepared some simple tips on what to gravitate towards and what to avoid when it comes to page rank. We hope it’ll prove useful to the professionals and the uninitiated alike.

1. How can you manage page rank? Well, there are really just two sensible ways. You can get more external links to pages on your site and you can try to register users linking from within as well as without. The first method needs to be accomplished by means of good link building strategies, and it’s true of both methods that link building services can help. The second way involves avoiding page rank from visitors being distributed among many pages on a site, since it’s optimal to have all visitors counted as visiting one. Google is very much aware of the techniques that have been employed to this end, and none of them, really work well.

2. How not to manage page rank? As a rule, using any technology outside Google itself for monitoring page rank is unwise. Use it for researching links, by all means, but assuming that Google would allow anyone to know more than they do about their own methods is virtual madness.

3. Don’t count links. If you’re specifically concerned with counting the number of links then you’re probably approaching SEO in the wrong way. Remember that it’s not quantity but quality that counts, and that search engines like Google decided long ago to punish bad practice. Buying a lot of links in the hope of increasing pagerank, for example, could prove to be counter-productive.

4. Get good quality links. Google assign higher importance to link to a site from authoritative sources. If you want to do something to improve your pagerank, implement a good link building strategy. Try to get links to your sit from domains that are ‘edu (education) .gov (government) .ac (academic). Learn about other domains that have importance online or from SEO link building experts. Having said this, it’s useful to point out that Google still hold all the cards when it comes to pagerank. It’s exclusive to Google and they aren’t telling us how exactly it works. Google’s algorithm is its own and its filters are too. We can make educated guesses and informed choices only.

5. Don’t try to hide pages from indexes. Privacy policies don’t prevent pages from being visible to search engines.

6. Consider the design of the site in terms of usability and ad location. Search engines want to rank pages well that provide relevant, high quality content to users. It makes sense really, when you think about what function you expect a search engine to perform. Keep in mind that good practice is also good SEO and that if your site is good for users it will also perform well when it comes to pagerank.

7. Feature fresh content that’s updated regularly. One of the key factors concerned in pagerank is surely having new content on your pages. Google takes this seriously and it’s another instance of good practice being good SEO.   

8. Use keywords wisely. Remember to analyse the words that users are typing into query boxes carefully. Take them into account at all times with a view to improving page rank. Beware of overusing them, though. Google have sophisticated methods of monitoring overuse and penalties can be severe.

In conclusion, pagerank is probably still as mysterious to you as it is to us. It is to everyone outside Google, to some degree. What’s certain, as illustrated here in our eight tips, is that you can’t get around it and you can’t ignore it. The best way of getting results is to act like it didn’t exist. Create a site that’s useful. Feature keywords cleverly and don’t overfill your site with them. Don’t try to cheat Google, you’ll lose. Get good quality (authoritative) links.

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