The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
May 2006, Volume 5, Issue 5

How Google Values Your Page: Much Ado About PageRank?

by Charmaine Madamba, Search Marketing Specialist, iProspect

There is a prevalent attitude in today’s culture that assigns importance, success or significance to placement on the top charts or to receiving high scores. The online realm, particularly search, is not exempt from this notion. Search result rankings on the top engines are crucial drivers on how webmasters address websites’ overall architecture and format.

Google, being the top search engine with 56% of the U.S. market share (according to StatMarket), features a ranking algorithm that has garnered significant discussion, and that is continuously updated and modified. PageRank is Google’s website valuation system and for many a marketer and webmaster, achieving a high PageRank is deemed to be an undeniable goal. But how accurate of a scoring system is PageRank, considering the multitude of factors that play into the Google algorithm? If not just PageRank, then what other criteria need to be pursued in order to maximize your website’s ability meet your business goals?

Who’s the Fairest of Them All?

PageRank was developed by Google to calculate the importance of a Web page, and consequently to determine how that page should be indexed within Google’s database. The algorithm that assigns a PageRank considers your website’s linking structure, the number of links pointing to your site, and the value of these links. With regards to how these link values are assigned, they are calculated based on the pages’ credibility and relevancy.

The value is assigned on a page-by-page basis within a site. Therefore the homepage usually has the highest PageRank because of the considerable number of links pointing to it, externally and internally. There have been speculations on how recent Google algorithm changes have affected the variables used in assigning values, but the facts remain that PageRank does not incorporate a site’s incoming traffic or consider page content, though these factors certainly play key roles in how well your site actually ranks within Google.

Updates on PageRank calculations and algorithm improvements are conducted on a regular basis. On this note, it is essential that we view the Google PageRank as a guide to a page’s approximate importance and not as the ultimate indication of a page’s value. PageRank is a comparative indicator of the link popularity of a site, but is not an accurate gauge of whether your site will rank well in Google or any other search engines.

Times (and PageRank), They Are A-Changin’

John Battelle acknowledged in his book, The Search: “While the PageRank is often understood to be an “all-knowing” algorithm, Google, in fact, looks at more than one hundred factors to determine a site’s relevance to your keywords. (p.22)” Accordingly, Google’s regular updates determine which of these factors need to take precedence.

In July 2005, an analysis of PageRank, reported in the Search Engine Journal outlined changes in how linking assessments need to be emphasized:

Relevant links are held valuable and reducing irrelevant links, like same-site or run-of-site links, will alleviate possible penalization;
Keep in mind that Google is actively filtering out paid links or advertising-related links within their natural results;
Consider PageRank when soliciting outside links; however it’s more important to obtain links from sites within or related to your industry.

Nobody can deny the power of PageRank as Google’s way of saying to your page or site, “Welcome to our index! You’re a 2/10 now, but you can grow to an 8 if you do no evil!” However, there are other factors involved in how search engines evaluate your site. Focusing on PageRank too much may cause you to overlook much needed enhancements to your website’s content and structure that would also net improvements to your online presence.

To put it in perspective: the New York Yankees pay the highest collective salary to their players of any team in baseball, and they have the most World Series championship wins. But somehow the boys in red over at Fenway Park still win half the games they play against them – because there are other factors in play.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: May 2006, Volume 5, Issue 5

How Google Values Your Page: Much Ado About PageRank?

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
May 2006, Volume 5, Issue 5