PageRank is a rating system for how important a web page is on the World Wide Web. It’s like a popularity poll. When Page A links to Page B, Page A is casting a vote for Page B. The importance of a page is based partially on the number of votes it gets. But, unlike in political elections, some votes are worth more than others. The importance, or rating, of the page that casts the vote (Page A in this example) determines the value of the vote itself. The importance of a website, its PageRank, is based largely on the number of votes the site has plus the importance of the votes.
People commonly think that the name PageRank refers to the ranking of a web page. That makes sense, but the truth is it is named after Larry Page, who developed it at Stanford University.
Not all links are counted in the calculation of PageRank. Votes from known link farms or other penalized sites are not counted. Sites that link to penalized sites are penalized themselves. But there is no penalty for an inbound link from a penalized site.
PageRank ranges from 0 to 10. New sites typically have a PageRank between 0 and 2. A site that has been around for close to a year and has good back links is likely to have a PageRank of 3 to 6. PageRanks between 7 and 10 are reserved for the leaders in the industry niche. Very few sites have such high PageRanks. Online PageRank checkers allow you to check the rank of any website.
Any site that depends on traffic from search engines needs a good PageRank to be successful. The better the PageRank the higher a site will be ranked in the search results. And, of course, people are more likely to click on the sites with the higher ranking.
One way to increase PageRank is to increase the number of pages in a website. Link the pages together for a batter PageRank. Make sure all the pages have quality content because Google checks for meaningless content and may penalize sites with useless pages. Quality content itself improves PageRank by increasing inbound links. Content matters because people link to sites they find interesting or useful.
PageRank, one of several link-based rating systems, is a product of Google. According to some, PageRank is not as important to website ranking as it formerly was. They argue that title, content, and URL have taken on greater significance in website ranking. While PageRank may not be as important as it once was, it still matters.
The best advice for web entrepreneurs: Build a terrific website with a good domain name, keywords in the title and URL, and useful content and a great PageRank will follow.
