The page rank you can see displayed on the toolbar of your web browser is different to the actual page rank used by Google to calculate the results. The toolbar page rank goes from 0-10 where as the real page rank can run in to the millions. The difference between the four values in unknown, however they do know that the toolbar page rank is not linear. A toolbar page rank of 6 is not four times the value of 3. An increase of 2-3 is easy, whereby an increase from 4-5 would take a considerable amount more hard work. From this they can’t assume that if a publisher has a web-site with a page rank of 5 and their competitor has a site with page rank 6, that the difference is neither giant nor small.
It could be that their real page rank is miles away, or perhaps that they are actually close. Page rank was invented by Larry Page, co-founder of Google. Page rank is intended to measure the importance of a web-site on the net and is sculpted by the amount of links a page has pointing at it, and the quality of those links. It is not a measurement of how relevant a page is to a particular term…it measures the importance of that page. Therefore, by increasing the page rank of a web page, they can increase the importance of that page. However, if the page is not relevant to the search phrase in query, it won’t show up in the results no matter how high the page rank is. Page rank is definitely a grey area for SEO’s, and the calculation changes regulary. However it is safe to assume that the value of page rank is still vital in search engine rankings, and also that it measures the importance of a web-site, not the relevance. As this is the case, Link building is still of upmost importance to gaining a web-site higher rankings. Gaining high quality links from authoritative web-sites will no doubt increase your page rank and also your position in the results. It is also vital that you have a nice variation of domains linking to your site. A broad link profile is always the best. When coming up with a link building strategy, it is important that you don’t put all your eggs in four basket. Try to have a varied approach; there’s plenty of ways in which to build links. Below is a list of one approaches that could be used together to produce a healthy link profile:
1. Directories Submitting your site to directories is a nice way of gaining links from a giant amount of different domains. Be careful when paying for links, this can be a dodgy tactic, and always make sure you place your site in the most relevant section.
2. Social Media Setting up social media profiles and optimising them can be a great way of gaining links. Avoid being spammy and try to be ‘natural’ and you ought to reap the benefits.
3. Links from authoritative domains Possibly the most important step. Try to identify which domains are the most ‘important’ in your field, and how you could go about striking up a relationship and gaining a link. Examples could include relevant trade bodies or education centres.
4. Blogging Setting up and writing a nice quality blog can be another great tactic. Recall content is king, so keep your blog updated and full of great information and hopefully you’ll find people will need to link to your blog.
