Newbies Guide to PageRank
Posted on January 12, 2008
Filed Under Blogging for Newbs, SEO Tips
If you listen to some bloggers you would think PageRank was like the Holy Grail but in reality, PageRank is a numeric value that is assigned by Google as a measure of how important a page is on the web.
Google calculates this rank using the number of your sites inbound and outbound links (an inbound link is another site linking to yours, and an outbound link is one that you are linking to yourself).
Google figures that these links are in essence casting a vote for that other page, as they figure that if the page had no relevance then why would you be linking to it? The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be, at least in the eyes of Google. It isn't quite that simple and we will discuss it further, but this is the definition in a nutshell.
The links are not all created equal in the eyes of Google. An inbound link from a PR5 site carries more "weight" or "influence" than an inbound link would from a PR2 site. The higher the value of the opposite page, then the more value the link carries.
You should also be aware that not all links are even counted by Google as they have a fairly sophisticated system for filtering out links from known link farms or link directories. They have recently become very stringent in regards to paid links as well.
Paid links were a pretty common practice in prior times, if a new blogger wanted a higher PR then all they had to do was buy a few links on a higher PR site and voila. This is a practice that Google frowns on these days and they often dole out penalties for those who partake in this practice. I have heard of PR5 sites being reduced all the way to PR0 overnight.
How is PageRank calculated?
The only formula that I have been able to find on the web to calculate pagerank is shown below and it is quite complicated. I am not sure that the average blogger gives a rip as to how, they just care more about what to do and what not to do to make it happen.
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))
This is the original equation that Google published back when they first started using PageRank and I have not been able to find anything different. The formula could very well have changed but you can get the basic premise of it here if you are a bit on the sadistic side.
In the equation above 't1 - tn' are pages linking to page A, 'C' is the number of outbound links that a page has, and 'd' is a dampening factor, usually set to 0.85; but again this may have changed since the time this formula was published.
A simpler way of looking at it:
PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a "share" of the PageRank of all pages linked to it)
"Share" = the linking page's PageRank divided by the number of outbound links on the page. So in theory a PR6 site with 100 outbound links might not give you the same value that a PR3 would give with only say 2 outbound links.
This is another reason to avoid link farms and directories; even though they have high PRs, they have hundreds if not thousands of outbound links. You don't get as much juice as you might elsewhere.
Very few topics get as much heat going on the blogosphere as PR and I am sure some have different theories than , but now you have a pretty decent understanding of how PR is calculated and what is involved. It's pretty simple - write good content, write a lot of content, drive traffic to your site, comment on other people's blogs, and you will likely see your rank raise in no time.
If you want to know where you stand right now then this site has a lot of great tools to monitor the health and well being of your site. You can check your backlinks, current pagerank, predicted pagerank etc.
What's in YOUR PageRank?
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Comments
4 Responses to “Newbies Guide to PageRank”
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Hi
Thanks for the info. But don’t you think having a PayPerPost banner just an inch or two away from your blog post which dissuades the practice of buying links is a little ironical. I hope you get the comment on the site. Anyways i really don’t like what google has done. I think buying and selling links should not be discouraged like this.
I don’t see the irony….whether someone chooses to continue using PayPerPost is up to them, just be aware that their very well may be a penalty.
You can still buy or sell links…you just need to make sure they are NoFollow links, which won’t pass any pagerank.
By most accounts the big G doesn’t seem to have a problem with this.
Links will always work, that just have to be spread out on different IP’s from different c blocks.
My pr was 3 last year and now it has become 0. I don’t really know why!