Chapter 8: Understand the King of Search Engine Confusion – Google PageRank
Posted on | April 27, 2009 | No Comments
Chapter 8: Understand the King of Search Engine Confusion – Google PageRank
When the Google technology known as the PageRank system was created and then installed on its free toolbar, it opened up quite a can of worms. Because, predictably enough, website owners began equated their PageRank with their search engine rankings… a mistake that can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and sleepless nights.
So let’s look at what PageRank is and what it isn’t. According to some search commentators, it’s an evil device that never should have seen the light of day. Others say it’s an invaluable tool to measure the success of a website’s link building strategy. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between.
What PageRank Does
PageRank, according to Google, is a system for ranking the importance of pages on a scale of zero to ten. It measures not just the sheer number of links coming into a page, but also the relative value of the pages they come from. The more important Google deems a page, the more valuable it considers any links coming from it. Merit by association.
So when conducting a search, Google uses the PageRank number along with dozens of other factors, such as keywords in content, to deliver search results that are, in their words, “both important and relevant to your search.”
The point to be gleaned from all this is that PageRank is just one element in a very complex system that Google uses when determining how high your site appears in the search results for any given term. PageRank influences your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) but so do a whole lot of other factors. However, because PageRank is right there on the toolbar and in your face, it’s hard to ignore and easy to understand why so many webmasters / site managers consider it the holy grail of search success, perhaps giving it more weight than it deserves.
Perfecting this One Element: The Google PageRank System
Okay, so PageRank is just one element in a very complex system and there are a whole lot of other factors to worry about. I get it. You get it. But you have to start somewhere, right?
How do we perfect the PageRank element?
To do perfect the Google PageRank System, we need to understand how PageRank is calculated. Unfortunately for us, that is a secret Google guards very closely. All we have to go by is the original paper Google published on the PageRank system. And while Google surely is using some newer variation of this calculation, it still forms the foundation of PageRank and is therefore worth understanding.
The Google PageRank Calculation:
Simple, right? Okay, maybe it needs a bit of explanation. What we are calculating here is the PageRank (PR) of Website A using these variables:
* (t1) – (tn) are pages linking to page A
* C is the number of outbound links that a page has; and
* d stands for ‘damping factor’, which is usually set to 0.85.
Therefore, we can simplify the equation a little bit:
Page A’s PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (the sum of each page’s PageRank that links to A divided by the number of outbound links on each page)
Please click here to find out How You Can Use The PageRank Calculation to Your Advantage.
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