Page Rank

Improving your websites Page Rank: How and Why

What is Page Rank?

Page Rank is a measurement used by Google to determine how reputable a website is.
Page Rank is measured on a scale of 0 – 10. Many pages are listed as unranked, which is a result of Google not knowing anything about the webpage.

Why should I try to improve my websites Page Rank?

When looking for website matches, Google considers many factors to determine which websites are best suited to the users search input. Page Rank is an extremely important factor in Google’s search algorithm. The higher your Page Rank, the more reputable Google believes your website to be, thus it places you above non-reputable webpages for similar matched content. Google is after all trying to give users the best possible search results. Simply said, if Google matches two identical webpages to a searched term, the page with the higher Page Rank will be displayed ahead of the lower.
Page Rank is most valuable when used in conjunction with a comprehensive search engine optimisation campaign, which will help to match the content of your website. Once the content is matched properly, the Page Rank helps to get your website listed higher in the results.
More information: search engine optimisation

How is Page Rank calculated?

Page Rank is calculated on a voting system. Simply put, every link to a website (A) from another website (B) is considered a vote from website B for website A. The more “votes” that a website has, the more reputable Google assumes that it is.
It does however get more complicated. Each website has a Page Rank assigned to it, which is its reputation. The more reputable website A is, the more weighted its Vote is considered. Eg. A link from a Page Rank 8 website is more valuable than a link from a Page Rank 1 website. Furthermore each link of a webpage dilutes the value of the vote, so a Page Rank 8 webpage with one link on it is more valuable than a Page Rank 8 webpage with 50 links on it.

Ideal Links

Webpage must have a high Page Rank.
Webpage must have as few outgoing links as possible.
However remember … every link still counts!

How to improve your Page Rank

Knowing how Page Rank is calculated answers the question of how to improve your Page Rank. Get more links to your website !
There are many ways to go about this:
• List your website on online directory websites: Directory services such as bizcommunity.co.za and brabys.com. These listings enable your website to be found on the directory, but also pass some Page Rank (usually small) to your website.
• Arrange link swaps will clients or partners. A link swap is mutually beneficial, and as long as it is not abused, links will not be diluted beyond value.

Related subjects: search engine optimisation