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Understanding Google Page Rank
Google, the search engine that has
evolved into the focus of all search engine optimization professionals
has in the past half of a year introduced the Page Rank feature. This is
nothing new to the search engine optimization industry, and probably
nothing new to most of our readers as we have mentioned it in previous
search engine articles.
For those who are not familiar with Google's Page Rank, which is
commonly known as PR, is Google's calculation or score of a web page
based on external and internal linking of a site, as well as on-page
criteria of the web page being linked to as well as the web page being
linked from. The Page Rank calculation is much more detailed and
complex, and we go into the calculation in more detail later in the
tutorial, as well point out other places that you can read up on how
Google calculates a web page's PR.
Before you can begin to develop or increase the PageRank of your website
and individual web pages, you will need to evaluate what the PageRank of
your site's pages is currently. To view the PR of your site you will
need to download the Google Toolbar.
PageRank is in some ways related to link popularity, but the calculation
is dependant on the quality and strength of the links, not just the
number of links. So, how does one go about building and increasing their
Page Rank. It is not as difficult as some may think.
Google
searches more sites more quickly, delivering the most relevant results.
Ranking Web Pages
Google runs on a unique combination of advanced hardware and
software. The speed you experience can be attributed in part to the
efficiency of our search algorithm and partly to the thousands of low
cost PC's we've networked together to create a superfast search engine.
The heart of our software is PageRank™, a system for ranking web pages
developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford
University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve
every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to provide
the basis for all of our web search tools.
PageRank Explained
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by
using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's
value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a
vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer
volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page
that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important"
weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google
remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages
mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines
PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that
are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond
the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of
the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to
determine if it's a good match for your query.
Integrity
The Google Page Rank value relies on the uniquely democratic nature of
the Internet by using its vast global link structure as a prime
indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a
link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google
looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives.
It also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that
are themselves important or are favorably viewed as "established firms"
in the Web community weigh more heavily and help to make other pages
look established too.
Google's complex, automated
methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult.
Google combines Page Rank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to
find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. And
though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does
not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a
higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way
to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search.
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