Hey Aron,
In this edition of the Save My Marriage Today
Affiliates Newsletter series, we're going to look
at Google Pagerank, what it is, and how to build
it up.
Those little green pixels that appear in your
Google toolbar giving your website a ranking out
of ten. (If you haven't got a Google Toolbar you
can get one from Google.)
You'll see a lot of advice out there on how to
boost your pagerank, a lot of bragging from
high-pagerank sites and a lot of effort exerted
by low-pagerank sites to try to raise their sites
into these hallowed halls.
But does it actually matter in the long run?
First, let's take a basic look at what pagerank
actually is. Back in the dim, dark ages of 1998,
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page
presented an article at the World Wide Web
Conference outlining a new way of analyzing
websites based on their link relationships. They
called this PageRank, and it is still at the basis
of all Google's web search tools.
The idea is this:
If I link to your site, that is like me making
a recommendation for your site. I'm saying your
site is good. The more people you have
recommending your website, the better your website
must be.
It's democracy in action -- so many people can't
be wrong! So the first rule of pagerank says that
the more recommendations you have, the higher your
pagerank. But that's far too easy.
Bring on rule number 2:
Rule 2 says that links from high pagerank sites
will contribute more to boosting your own pagerank
than links from relative nobodies.
Put it this way, who are you more likely to
trust: Someone with a proven good reputation and
association with other people of high repute, or
someone you've just met and don't know anything
about? That's a no-brainer, you'll trust the
first.
In a way a high pagerank is similar to a good
reputation.
If you've got a recommendation from someone
with a good reputation, then this is going to
reflect well on you too. You could get twenty
recommendations from sites with a low pagerank
(poor reputation), but they might not boost your
pagerank as much as just two recommendations from
high pagerank sites.
An additional aspect to this second rule is
that Google seems to make distinctions between
links that are earned and links that are bought or
traded. Earned links are links from authority
blogs and web communities, news coverage, Yellow
page listings, user reviews, and other organic
links.
Links are deemed NOT to be earned if they
come from distribution of articles and press
releases, link farms, reciprocal links and
listings on directories that exist solely for the
search engines -- ie, ones that humans don't
actually visit.
It seems that more PR is passed through earned
links than through the non-earned links. As an
analogy -- You're not great when you pay someone to
say you're great, or when you play "you scratch my
back, I'll scratch yours." You're more great when
someone randomly recognizes you on the street and runs
after you yelling "Dude, you're great!"
The third rule of pagerank states that the
benefit (the little boost to your pagerank) passed
on through a link is diluted if there are many
other links coming out from that page.
Imagine I have an excellent reputation, a nice
high pagerank, but I am very generous with my
recommendations. In fact I'm so nice, I'll
recommend anything -- all you need to do is ask and
you can join 10,000 other recommendations on my
website.
In this situation you're perhaps less likely to
trust my judgement, aren't you? You'll think I'm a
soft-touch. If I only had one recommendation on my
site then that site I'm recommending must be
pretty darn good, so it gets all the PR value I'm
able to pass on.
The fourth rule of pagerank states that a link
will only pass on the full wham of its pagerank
once it's been in place for a while. Links come
and go, you might be in favor one week and then
old news the next week, but links that have been
around for a long time indicate enduring value and
stronger relationships, so they're more valuable
and will help your pagerank more.
* Note: These "rules", as I put them, are
anything but. They're just assumptions based on
observations.
Taking all these things into consideration,
it's relatively easy to develop a strategy for
building your pagerank.
- Write articles and submit them to article
sites with the proviso that people using the
articles include your author's "resource box"
containing a link to your site. Be careful that
articles you submit are at least 25% different
from articles on your website. When a search
engine sees two identical sites, it will give the
most credit (pagerank, search engine ranking) to
the one it sees first -- that can be a bit of a
gamble.
- Become an authority on a subject, or
create a valuable site that people will naturally
recommend to others.
- Pay someone to find links for you.
Elancers (for instance) typically charge per hour
or per qualified link for this service.
- Submit to search directories.
- And so on, and so forth.
But the real question is: Does pagerank
actually do anything? Or do we just get in a big
flap about it because it's the most obvious thing
we can actually measure when it comes to SEO?
While Google are adamant that Pagerank still
forms the basis for all their web search tools,
it's a smaller piece of the picture than many
people realize.
It's important to remember that your aim is to
have your website rise in the search engine
listings for your particular keywords. Got that?
Tattoo it on your forehead in reverse script so
you see it when you look in the mirror.
Then go back to your elementary SEO and you'll
see that to help your website rise in the rankings
you need to do the following things:
- Ensure you're building relevant link
relationships with appropriate sites
- Ensure that people linking to your site are
using appropriate keywords in their link text
- Ensure that your site is suitably optimized
for your keywords
So where does PR fit into this? PR is largely a
reflection of the first task on that list. When
you have a high PR it means you have some good
links coming your way.
If they're the right kind of links then they
(and your PR) might help you in your search engine
rankings, but it's just one part of the picture.
Google has many other considerations when it
figures out your ranking, and you shouldn't focus
on your Pagerank at the expense of these other
things.
Where PR is useful is as leverage for building
new link relationships. People will be much more
willing to swap links with a PR6 site than a PR1
site, because that will benefit their PR as well.
Since they value your association, your link
partners will also be more willing to do as you
ask, for example: link using certain text, or link
from certain pages. So a high PR can turn into
high search engine rankings, but indirectly.
It helps you to get good links from good sites.
If you're just about collecting the little green
pixels and you don't pay attention to the quality
and relevancy of these links, however, they're not
going to help you VERY much.
And at end of the day, you don't really need PR
for getting good links either. Particularly if
you're very charming, or your site is particularly
good.
If you're providing an excellent resource, or
you have a service, gimmick, tool or widget that
people love, you're going to find yourself
attracting links and building that PR regardless.
The main point I'm trying to make is that PR is
only one piece in a much more complicated picture,
and it's certainly not the be all and end all for
your search engine rankings.
Testament to this fact is that it's by no means
uncommon to see sites with low PR beating high PR
sites in the search engines. What is important is
that you take a whole-picture approach to your
search engine optimization, and view PR as simply
a reflection of the strength of the links to your
site.
If you focus on the rest of your SEO
strategy, then your PR should fall nicely into
place as well.
I hope that you enjoyed and gained value from
this newsletter,
Till next time,
Andrew
SaveMyMarriageToday.com
SaveMyMarriageToday.com
Level 2
107 Cashel St
Christchurch 8011
NEW ZEALAND
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