How to Push your site up the rankings with Google PageRank
Maximizing your search engine ranking relies on a lot more than keywords nowadays. Google’s PageRank system can make your website stand out from the crowd, rise to the top and make the search engines happy.
It used to be that you could get virtually any website at the top of the rankings with just the judicious use of keywords both behind the scenes and in the actual text. Those days are almost gone. The fact that you could manipulate search engine rankings really ticked off the search engines themselves and they devised different ways to test the validity of a site. One of the best known examples of this is Google’s PageRank system.
So, how can you make PageRank work for you?
In the past a simple algorithmic search could see a fairly pointless website ranked real high. If the site was built around the right keywords in the right places and its text was keyword stuffed then it might fool the search engines and move up the ranks. Great as this was for the site’s owners it didn’t do much for the reputations of the search engines. Sites with no real intrinsic value to a visitor could rank high and sites that were useful could sink without a trace.
PageRank looks to change the way that the system works by giving specific values to web pages. The higher the PageRank that a page gets the more likely it is to occupy a high position in a search. While keywords can still have an effect here this change simply makes it harder to get a search ranking without merit which is good news for website visitors on the whole.
If you look at this another way, the keywords and the way that they are used on a site can show a search engine how relevant it is. But, the added functionality of PageRank can take two web pages with the same keywords and keyword use and establish which is actually better in terms of quality. Keywords don’t matter in this instance, the higher PageRank quality rating will get the best search engine ranking.
So, how have things changed? Well, essentially, now it’s all about links and what they do for a site. Links have long been a greatly desired SEO tactic but they are much more important now in PageRank terms. This system basically analyzes the links that lead to a site and gives them a value. Each link that comes into a site is viewed as a positive ‘vote’ on its behalf.
THE EXAMPLE!
So, for example, if you run a news site that is linked into by another news site then this will stand in your favor here. Things, however, are not that simple as PageRank then analyzes the site that links to your site to assess its value. If this site in turn is deemed as being valuable by PageRank then its link to your site increases in value even more.
As you can see having a link is not, in itself, enough to give you maximum benefits. What a site needs is not just the link but a valuable link. So, for example, in the news site context let’s say your link comes in from Reuters(just imagine). Now that would be an extremely valuable link. This site is high in traffic and has a significant reputation. If, however, your link comes in from your local weekly newspaper then the link, while of some value, won’t necessarily get the ‘double whammy’ that the Reuters link would.
One of the great things about the PageRank system is that you can use more than one link per page. As you can imagine this gives you a lot more scope to try and build up votes for a page and for your site in general. But while it makes sense to get in-bound links wherever you can; it is still important to think of their quality. A low quality link can have a negative effect on how you are ranked by the system in just the same way as a high quality one can improve it.
Often this is not something we actively think about. In general traffic terms a link equals increased traffic which is always a good thing, right? Not always in this context. If you do find that a site that could push down your ranking has linked to your site then you may need to use the ‘nofollow’ attribute value. This will tell Google, and most of the other major search engines, that the link should be disregarded.
Finally, do remember that links are not the only issue to be considered in ranking. Any site will stand a far greater chance of being perceived as valuable by a search engine if it contains robust and useful content that will add value to its visitors. So, don’t ignore what your site has to say!
What do you think? Can PageRank help in Pushing your site rankings? Do let me know.
Article written by Typhoon
Yo! I am Typhoon a.k.a Sushant, a 16 yrs. old blogger from India and the owner of SmartBloggerz. Here I try to share useful Blogging related articles which would help a blogger to succeed. You can connect to me on Twitter.
Typhoon has written 316 superb article(s) on this blog
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20 Comments Add yours
May 23, 2009
6:43 pm
Nice Article. I also do think that the Google PageRank can help in better ranking possibilities.That’s why I am working hard to improve my PR this time.
May 23, 2009
9:26 pm
The importance of Page Rank has been greatly diminished in recent years. In my niche (Sacramento Weddings & Sacramento DJs), our biggest competitor (www.soundimagedjs.com) has a Page Rank of ZERO (PR-0), yet he is always right near the top of SERP (usually right next to my site).
Its possible for a site with ZERO page rank to out-rank sites with Higher Page Rank in the Organic Serp.
Instead of concentrating on Page Rank, web site owners need to focus on SEO and link building with good anchor text Key Words.
Twitter: @lhrowley
May 23, 2009
11:00 pm
Having a good Google PR is a great thing, but Matt makes an excellent point here. PR0 sites can easily dominate search results, particularly for long-tail keywords. If your site shows up first when a user searches for a keyword, it doesn’t really matter what your PR is.
That said, it can be a good selling point if you’re offering ad space on your site – many advertisers will pay more for ads on high PR sites.
Lee, Blogger’s Workshop
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May 24, 2009
7:47 am
I don’t think page rank is as important as most people think. With that being said, I work every single day to build links and as Matt says above, I am trying to focus on anchor text and I often comment on blogs that have keywordluv installed for that reason.
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May 24, 2009
12:17 pm
what a great tips on how to get a high page rank..
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May 25, 2009
6:24 pm
Great post, I will bookmark it on my new social network
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May 26, 2009
8:12 pm
Typhoon, thanks for the tips. I like your analogy of links being votes and needing better votes vs. low ranking votes. Thanks for the article.
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Twitter: @smartbloggerz
May 27, 2009
4:12 pm
Great to see your reply Jack for the first time on SB.
June 1, 2009
8:19 pm
Great post. You are very right that you no longer stuff pages. Now you actually have to write great content that will get linked to.
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June 4, 2009
9:17 pm
I have a scripts store, it had PR0 and it was ranked #1 on Google for many keywords! How can you explain that ?
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June 5, 2009
3:20 pm
I think first we will have to look whether those keywords are really competitive one or not and does it have many searches everyday. Secondly your that site may be taken as a rare case also.
Twitter: @shanecru70yahoo.com
June 11, 2009
6:33 pm
thanks!
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.It will greatly help me in my SEO activities.
Twitter: @Zemalf
June 25, 2009
9:44 pm
As Matt and @lhrowley mentioned, it doesn’t matter if you’re PageRank is 0 or 10 if your site or blog doesn’t show up with relevant keywords. PageRank will make a difference when the search results are shown and your PR5 link can then push past the PR0 link.
But I don’t feel like nofollowing individual links no matter what, if I think it’s relevant to link to something, I might as well follow it
Zemalf´s last blog ..How I Pushed My Blog from PageRank 0 to PR4 in 37 Days
August 5, 2009
5:13 pm
PageRank does not have a direct effect on rankings and given way to much importance in the above article.
Tim Jones´s last blog ..Backpacking Towels Explained
October 4, 2009
2:42 pm
I don’t think PageRank actually relates to SERP ranks although the more PR a page has the more likely it is to be spidered by the search bots.
October 16, 2009
1:10 am
I agree with some of the above comments which say that PageRank doesn’t have a direct effect on SE rankings. It is nice to have good PR and it is definitely a result of high PR sites linking to yours, but we have all seen a lot of PR 0 sites out-ranking sites with PR.
November 23, 2009
12:06 pm
There’s another factor at play with this page rank thing. PR of blog is actually not as important as PR of a webpage.
It is better to have a PR4 webpage in a PR0 website, than to have a PR0 webpage in a PR8 website.
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November 28, 2009
3:11 pm
I figure the main way that Page Rank can affect your progress as you attempt to move up the search engine rankings is in how attractive a prospect your site looks to someone considering a link exchange proposition.
The truth is that someone will be far more keen to exchange links with a site that has a PR4 than they will be to exchange with a site that has no PR attributed to it. The flow on from this is that the PR4 will get the link while the lower site will not.
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December 5, 2009
1:58 am
I agree that PR is not everything when it comes to ranking in search engines, but it does play a major role. A site with high PR can make a post on a long tail keyword and easily be on the first page, while a site with PR 0 has to gain many backlinks to achieve the dame position. Thanks for the post.
January 16, 2010
9:37 pm
Thanks for the brief – I believe in what the guy are saying about if a page ranks 0 the user will not mind.
Thanks for the post