PageRank the next Y2K?

PageRank… or is it really just a few green pixels? Every so often we hear of a new PR update and the craze that follows it. Has this addiction finally reached a pinnacle or has the worst yet to come? I shudder to think.

Funny enough, the name PageRank has little to do with actual web pages. The name is derived from Google founder and developer Larry Page, hence the name Page-Rank.

PageRank is defined by Google as: 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".

This translates into a democratic internet where the sites with more links are deemed more important, but that links from these important sites are deemed to be more important too.

I am sure that anyone who has an email listed somewhere in cyberspace has had a link request that has included the: …please put a link to our site on a PR2+ page. Possibly the most concerning is that nobody really knows what the PageRank of any page truly is, so how can anyone really verify this? With the current PageRank updates coming out so very slowly, about 4 times a year, how would a young website ever be able to compete with an established website?

Most web users, with the Google Toolbar installed, assume that PageRank goes from one to ten. This is little more than a very (and I do mean VERY) rough guide as to the popularity of the page. In this case the 1 really represents something silly like 0.000001 and the 10 virtually immeasurable. This all remains very subjective to the number of pages and the number of links on indexed pages and which of them Google gives weight to or ranks highly. As you can tell quite quickly, that value of 1 to 10 really could represent anything.

Now I say it: I’m so very much over this PageRank craze!

Okay, now that that has been said. Links are important. Links are possibly the most important attribute when trying to rank a webpage for a particular search term. You need only have a look back upon all the Link Bombs from the past to see that by simply adding links to a site you can rank it for virtually any search phrase. The terms find chuck norris and miserable failure come to mind. It must be said however that while many of these tactics do work, they often don’t last for very long.

PageRank is indeed a very valuable concern when trying to rank for competitive phrases. And as the PageRank description points out that the more links the better, the more popular the website sending the link even better still. But I think we can all appreciate that the true nature of this recipe is as closely guarded as the Coca-Cola or KFC recipe – perhaps even more so.

But perhaps it is the next level of the PageRank that really makes the most difference – Trust Rank. As mentioned before PageRank is calculated by the number of incoming links and from which site these links are from. A newly created website has little weight when it comes to casting a “vote” to another website. A site that has been online and active for the past 5-10 years would pass a lot more weight along. Usually you will see that these older sites do indeed have a good few green pixels in that toolbar. But possibly the most important factor here would be the age and traffic Google themselves have passed on over time. This would go some way to establishing trust. If Google has never blacklisted a URL and it has remained active and current throughout all those years then perhaps it is very much trusted. This TrustRank could indeed prove to be the real PageRank over time.

While it may be difficult to evaluate the true trust value of a website, especially a new website, there are a few tell tale signs to look out for:

• Look for a security certificate; this is usually a good sign that someone else has already done the fine-tooth comb job for you.


• Check the websites back links. Remember trust is often created by links themselves; these links will indirectly be linking you to the rest of the internet.


• Check for indexed pages; this is where the green pixels do come in handy, if it has a visible PageRank then chances are that Google has ranked the page. It never hurts to use the site:www.domain-here.com command.

These are normally the easiest ways to establish the authenticity of website.

Links are very important in speeding up the indexing process to any new website as the more links that are incoming the more likely Google will notice your website. The weight of those links are more important than bulk. After all a site that has a high Trust Rank will pass on more weight to another page than a page that has 1000 links from spam websites.

As for right now, I believe that little green bar to be nothing but a big hoax as it is out dated, rarely updated and so far pretty meaningless, I wouldn’t give it any more credit than the Y2K bug. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google were to announce that its PageRank toolbar is little more than smoke and mirrors. If so, Larry Page is surely a better illusionist than David Copperfield.

Linking Practices Part 4 of 3: The Unconfirmed

Here in part four of “Linking Practices” we will cover how to maximise the benefits of those links we discussed previously (check out part 1: “Links Defined”, part 2: “Links Applied” and part 3: “Link Tricks”).

Okay, so you’ve already noticed that this is part 3 of 4 (you did notice, didn’t you?). After all it is commonly known that the best trilogies come in fours. These are unconfirmed ideas. I don’t think anything can really be classed as a myth or truth in SEO simply because what holds true today may not hold true tomorrow or vice versa. That’s why I refer to these as ideas and not myths. I guess that’s what makes it all so very exciting.

Link Juice:
Ah, link juice. What exactly is it? How much does a page have? How is it lost? It is suggested that the total link juice that each page has is a result of the number of links going into a page. Of course if you wanted to be able to measure that one accurately you would need a base page to work from. So for now we will simply say that a page with many links has a lot more link juice than a page with few links (assuming all links are equal). I don’t believe that link juice can be lost. It simply becomes more diluted at more links are added. Sometimes some of this juice can be given up by having too many links. Imagine a page with 1000 links; do you think that Google will actually follow each of those? I doubt it. I would venture to guess that when encountering a page with an excessive number of links our friend the Google Bot would simply ignore the whole page.

PageRank Shaping:
“Nofollowing your internals can affect your ranking in Google” – Matt Cutts. Okay so purposefully nofollowing your own pages is a confirmed way of promoting some pages of your website a little more than others. After all, who would want to rank for the phrase “contact me” when you are trying to sell kites? This brings us back to the first topic, Link Juice. Each page has X amount of juice or link love to spend. This is relative to many different factors, but we’ll just say that it’s due to just inbound links at this point. Each link from that page shares some of that X. If you only have 2 links from a page, each link is worth ½ of X. If you have 4 links then each link is worth ¼ of X and so on. Internal PageRank can be shaped by nofollowing some of the pages you don’t desire or need to rank – the privacy policy or terms and conditions come to mind here. By nofollowing these pages you don’t have to share the juice. In this case the pages that do get the juice will be getting more.

Think of it as follows, you and 5 friends (that’s 6 of you) share a six pack and you each get a beer. But if three of your friends are teetotallers, then those of you that do indulge in alcohol each get 2 beers, getting you just that little bit drunker in the process. By nofollowing you can do exactly the same thing to each of your pages. Although I would suggest that you don’t drink while writing your copy.

Buying/Selling Links:
While Google have come right out and said “do not buy text links” (for PageRank purposes that is). However it can be very difficult at times to spot a paid link. While many publishers mark their “sponsored” links accordingly there are no doubt a few that won’t. While the PageRank craze does seem to be dying down a little many still believe that any page’s worth is proportional to the toolbar PageRank – something that we know is inaccurate at best. I would bet that if you had a site or page with a high PageRank you wouldn’t have to look too long or hard to find a willing buyer for a link to two. Will Google ever find out? Who knows just how good they are at detecting bought links? And regardless of how good they are there will always be a few that manage to get away with it. So far it would seem that the only real penalty for buying or selling links is a decrease in toolbar PageRank – is that really so bad?

While there are many ways to try and cheat the system by weighting some links, negating others and even blatant cheating (by buying links) sooner or later you will get caught or worse you may end up nofollowing your more important pages by accident. It is vital to remember that the darker the hat you are wearing the shorter your success periods tend to be.

After all the changes in algorithm, the war on paid links… the list really does go on. There will never be a substitute for a well designed site with unique content as this will gain links naturally.