I have found out that Page Ranks have been updated by Google just recently. This usually comes as a joy to many new bloggers as they will finally see the efforts of their hard work in blogging and promoting, as their n/a Page Rank (PR) turns into a number from 0-10. Of course there are some sites which would see their PR go down and does not welcome the update. I am still new (n/a) and have nothing to lose, which is why I am very much looking forward to the next update.
What is Page Rank?
Page Rank is the measure of relative importance of a particular site compared to other sites. If you have a higher rank, that means you have more authority and will most likely mean you have better information than the rest of your niche.
If you own a web hosting company for example and have a PR 7, then you will likely appear higher in a query from a search engine compared to a PR 5, as you are deemed to give out better and more accurate information.
What makes Page Rank so important?
The higher Page Rank you have, the higher you are on the search list, so the more likely you are to be hit and read by people. That is why many people use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to improve their PR, which is a means of optimizing ones site so it would naturally appear in Search Engines when a certain keyword is typed in.
A higher PR can also be a signal to other people that your site has a lot of interesting content, and might just check it out because of that.
Page Rank is also very important when you are trying to monetize your site. Most advertising platforms will check out your PR to see if you deserve to advertise for their company. If you have a low PR then some will deem you unworthy of representing their product or service. You see, PR is also a reflection of traffic (how many people visit your site), so why would they want to advertise somewhere that only a few people visit? They could buy ads from better site. Of course they can still get an ad if the price is right.
Page Rank can also say how reputable or authoritative your site is. In this case, if you link to them, you are in turn passing on some link juice or authority to their site, which is why they would want to purchase an ad from you.
How do I rank up? Google Algorithm?
Traffic
This one comes obvious. The more people visit your site, the more it means that it has some useful information that others want to check out, which gives you higher authority in regards to a particular topic.
Backlinks
If your site has useful information, then people will refer you by linking from their site to yours. The more backlinks you have, the more authoritative your site is. Natural backlinks reflects useful information, else people won’t link to you.
If you have picked up on the word ‘Natural’, then you might wonder if there is such a thing as Unnatural backlinks. Thing is, if you created backlinks to your site by yourself, then this is in fact not natural.
How do you create backlinks that does not come from your own site? There are actually a lot of ways such as commenting on other blogs, article submissions, bookmarking, forums, web directories, and the like. It doesn’t matter to the Google Bots (Little data gathering bugs that crawl all over a site to check for keywords and backlinks) if your site’s backlinks are naturally or unnaturally made, backlinks are backlinks.
It must be pointed out that in most cases, people won’t be linking to your blog, so it is best to create backlinks of your own.
Site Speed
As of late, Google has decided to incorporate Site Speed as a factor for Page Rank. This ensures that the recommended sites in the search query would be easily accessible. A lot of people get frustrated by slow Site Speed so this is a good thing. Google Bots determine site speed through how fast they can crawl the site.
Google Favoritism (?)
Google doesn’t give out its algorithm for obvious reasons. People might catch on and just follow what Google wants to get a good Page Rank and negate everything else such as good content. So there is a shadow of mystery with the exact Google algorithm that we could only infer about the missing criteria.
My site is supposed to be Page Rank 3, but my other pages are n/a, why is that?
Page Rank is not constant within the whole site as every new page is treated as such, a new page. When your site first started out, it also had a PR n/a, and you can see that every new page is ranked under the same principle. Your front page will most likely have the highest PR as it has been there the longest and also serves as a portal to other pages in your site, so supposedly it gets the most traffic. It is possible for a single page to get a higher page rank though if it gets more traffic and backlinks.
How high can the PR of my site go?
As from my observation, big corporation blogs (such as Cisco.com) can have a PR 8, entertainment blogs (such as PerezHilton.com) can rank as high as PR 7, typical Design Blogs can rank about a PR 5-6, other types of blogs such as eco or travel grabs PR 4, while personal blogs usually get PR 2-3. I am a strong believer that it is all about the particular niche you’re in; or probably because you get more traffic as your topic gets more interesting for more people.
Now let’s get to the big player sites. Google of course get a PR 10, while Yahoo gets a PR 9. High backlink/traffic players also get substantial PR, such as facebook (Alexa Ranking: 2, PR 10), Youtube (AR 3, PR 9), twitter (AR 12, PR 9), and the like.
How do you check for PR?
A useful tool would be the Page Rank Checker at http://www.prchecker.info/
Just input the site URL, type in the code, and viola, it gives you the PR of any site on the World Wide Web. You can also opt to place a PR meter chiclet in your site if you feel that your PR is substantial enough to boast about. Or you can place the actual checker so you won’t need to go visiting the site every time you want a PR checked.
Any other information you would like to know about Page Rank? Leave a comment and I will answer it to the best of my abilities!