This is going to be my first article on the SEO module. Before even, we plunge into the depth of SEO, let’s talk about google page rank. This interesting ranking algorithm was made by the founder of Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Whenever someone googles something online the SERP aka Search Engine Page Results shows them the most relevant high-quality content. This content is as per the user’s search terms. This page ranking algorithm is one of the over 200+ google factors when it comes to ranking web pages. However, this is not the only considering factor when deciding page rank by Google.
What is google page rank in SEO ranking? In-depth!
A Google page rank algorithm that ranks web pages on a scale from 1 to 10.
That’s what it is in a nutshell. The quality and quantity of links to a webpage determine a relative score of that page’s importance and authority on a 0 to 10 scale.
Very few websites have a perfect score of 10. This is majorly linking websites like Twitter.com (Don’t forget to follow), USA.gov, and Adobe reader download sites.
These websites have the highest number of backlinks to their web pages. PageRank 5 websites have a good number of inbound links, PR 3 and PR 4 sites have a fair amount, and brand new websites without any inbound links pointing to them start at PageRank 0.
Big Question. Does google page rank still matters in SEO ranking?
Now if you want to find out the google page rank for your website, it’s not possible.
This is because Google has stopped sharing the page ranks with the webmasters. A lot of webmasters were under the impression that getting backlinks were the only way of getting better in SERP’s.
This thinking, however, was not correct and there are many factors behind amplifying the ranking of a web page rather than just backlinks.
Even though it’s now hidden from public view, however, PageRank remains an important ingredient in Google’s secret ranking algorithms.
Just imagine if google page rank was the only parameter in ranking the pages high, the results would not be relevant. You would have got the results on the basis of how many backlinks are on the page which is making the page rank of the webpage high. Although it might not be relevant to you.
Since PageRank is only one factor in the Google ranking algorithm, it’s important to remember that a high PageRank does not guarantee high rankings — but it can significantly help.
Google page rank toolbar
As we were talking earlier that Google does not share the PR (Page Rank) data. The page rank toolbar which is available as Google Page rank toolbar as a chrome extension does not work.
Even if you add the said extension to your chrome browser, it shows “ERR” in the page rank section. Although it does give out a few other details like the “Alexa Rank” and other shared values. However, the page rank section gives nothing.
Since Google wants to return page one results that are high quality, relevant, and trustworthy. It may return web pages with better PageRank scores higher up in the SERPs. Although, Google page rank is only one of many ranking factors taken into consideration.
Link Juice AKA PageRank Points! How web pages get the benefits of backlinks?
Now the question is that how does this page ranking works. Let’s get into the google page ranking methodology. When a website “X” links to your web page it passes on link juice or in other words it is endorsing your site. Basically, it means that the other site is casting vote for your web page. Google takes into consideration all of these link votes.
Google draws conclusions about the relevance and significance of individual web pages. This is the basic concept behind PageRank. When one page links to another it passes PageRank points which are also known as link juice.
The amount of juice that your web page gets when it links to the page which is housing the link depends on two things. Firstly, it depends on the amount of link juice that the housing page has. Secondly, it depends on the total number of links on the webpage that are passing PageRank.
How Link Juice Is Passed?
Every web page has a limited about of link juice it can pass the linked pages. For e.g. a webpage with 20 accrued PageRank points cannot pass more than 20 points of link juice per page. If a page with 20 PageRank points links to one other page, that one link will transfer the full amount of link juice to that one other webpage.
But if a page with 20 PageRank points links to five web pages (internal or external), each link will transfer only one-fifth of the link juice. Look at the below-embedded image.
Although Google applies a decay formula to calculate the PR points. However, the actual calculation will be a bit different although the calculation steps are the same as above.
Is Page Linking Possible Without Passing PR Points?
Absolutely yes. Like any technology, it can be amended for the webmasters to use their webpage as per their whims and fancy. So in case you want to aid user experience, however, do not wish to pass on the PR juice, you can do it.
You can tell Google not to pass PageRank by amending some links with a rel=” no follow” attribute. A no-followed link is not crawled by the search engines, and no PageRank or anchor text signals are transferred.
However, Google still sees the no-followed links as the total number of links on the page, and thus the link juice is reduced. E.g. If you have a webpage with link juice as 100 and it has 4 links. Out of these 4 links, three are no-followed still only 25 link juice is passed to the followed link. It is important to understand this concept, as it helps a lot while setting your no-follow links.
Bad Linking & rel=”nofollow”
Bad linking is worse when it comes to Google page rank. Google is smart enough to identify if the links you are getting authentic or not. Do not ever try to buy the backlinks from suspicious websites.
The search engines might suspect you are trying to manipulate search results. They might slap your site with a ranking penalty. As we talked about how “no-follow” links affect the google page rank, however, doing this essential for certain types of links.
- Paid links and ads
- Links that would dilute your subject relevance
- Links to untrustworthy pages
Paid-for links and ads on your site MUST have a nofollow attribute (see Google’s policy on nofollow). Google’s penguin algorithms are smart enough to identify any manipulative paid links, so just be cautious.
Also, try to link your pages with other web pages that have similar content. For e.g., if I write about cycling I will not be linking it to anything like fashion as the topics are different and I do not want to confuse the search engine. Just do the white hat SEO.
Linking relevant content pages amplify your topic relevance. So keep your topic silos clear and strategic. The use of the Nofollow attribute can be applied when linking off-topic pages together.
Third and final thing to worry about is when you try to link your web pages to a sketchy website. Google hates un-trustworthy websites and getting the backlink from them will not do you any good.
Final Word Of Caution
Hey, now that we know what google web page rank is all about we can start building page links. So if you are thinking about whether setting up a backlink is important or not? Well, they are very important.
Just because Google does not show us the page ranking data it does not mean that it is not important. Also, It’s not true that the more links you have, the better off you are. it’s all about more quality links that you should have on your web pages.
When it comes to Google, quality is more important than quantity. Check out this video tutorial which I made to understand web page rank.
Words Of Wisdom for SEO ranking
Poor quality links from spammy sites can deteriorate your search engine rankings. Only get links from quality sites and especially those links which are relevant to your subject and niche. Never ever try to buy the links. I will keep updating this article to match the changes which Google might have in the future.
So this brings us to the end of this article for SEO ranking, in case you have a question related to the SEO ranking please drop a comment at the end of this article.
