Analysis of Google PageRank Assignment |
| Date Added: March 16, 2009 11:46:46 PM |
| Author: Jessica Navarro |
| Category: Business: E-Commerce: Website Promotion: Search Engine Optimization Firms |
| In the SEO arena there is a lot of focus on PageRank as an indicator of a domain's worth. Although it is probably one of the most important aspects of a domain's worth in the eyes of Google, there are a few points that should be mentioned. The higher the PageRank of web pages linking to a given page, the higher its PageRank is likely to be. A site can have a high PageRank with relatively few links pointing to it if those links are of a high PageRank.So, if a page has 4 PageRank 4 and 3 PageRank 3 links pointing at it, it will probably be assigned a PageRank of 4. Also, web pages that have a lot of low PageRank and PageRank N/A hyperlinks pointing to them can have their PageRank lowered as a result. Probably the most important factor in the assignment of PageRank to a web page is the PageRank of the web pages linking to it. Sheer quantity of links does not help to increase PageRank. PageRank is generally not assigned to a page higher than the pages that link to it. This is true for both external and internal hyperlinks. Web pages that don't have any PageRank are often symbolised as having N/A PageRank.Google assigns each page on the internet a score and when one page links to another it passes some value onto the page it is linking to. First of all, for whose who don't know what PageRank is - it is a score used by Google to decide how important a domain is based on analysis of hyperlinks. The higher the PageRank, the more likely Google is to trust it. Google PageRank has eleven values, between 1 and 10. Some suggest that the text content of a page affects PageRank assignment, but this doesn't seem to be the case. There is no substantiated evidence that text affects PageRank other than pages that have been spammed often have their PageRank removed. When it come to sub-pages, time is a factor in PageRank distribution. When new sites first get assigned PageRank their sub-pages often remain without any PageRank. In general, sub-pages are somewhat slow to get give PageRank. Google is generally less trusting of sub-pages unless they belong to a trusted domain. In particular sites with a lot of sub-pages and even more so sites that link to a lot of internal pages (like directories) can struggle to pass their PageRank to internal pages. The architecture of the site has a major role to play in the distribution of PageRank. Google uses what is known as block level analysis to analyses web pages. They use their vast knowledge of the nature of the web to decide what links on a page are probably the most important and the pages these links point to are more likely to receive PageRank. Google can and do change websites' PageRank. This is generally as a penalty for sites that have used unhonest methods. This can often cause all the site's sub-pages to loose their PageRank. It has also been claimed that in the past Google has made mistakes in PageRank updates. Finally, the PageRank of a web page may change even when there has been no change in the hyperlinks pointing to that page. This is either due to changes in the structure of links between all websites or modifications made by Google. Sky Alfaro is an SEO consultant with the SEM Labs SEO Agency where she helps small to medium sized companies with search engine marketing training. |
