I’ve often heard people say that their PageRank isn’t high enough and that they have to find a way to quickly increase it. Are you obsessing over your PR? Hang on - you’re putting the cart before the horse.
Let’s start by examining what PageRank is, how it is achieved and how it is used by Google in the ranking process. Many of you are already familiar with PageRank but for those who are not, it is Google’s attempt to measure the importance of a page on a scale of 0 to 10. It is an algorithm that examines link structure as a gauge of the importance of a site and its individual pages. If site A links to site B, this is seen, as Google puts it, as a vote for site B. If you want to know more about the technical aspects of how this works Wikipedia offers this in-depth description of PageRank. (Warning though…it might give you a headache!)
It is important to note that PR is not simply a measure of the number of links, it is a measure of the quality of inbound links. Google is not the only search engine that uses a measure of links and link quality as a factor in ranking, they just happen to have trademarked their own version and they display it visually if you use the Google Toolbar.
Do you need a high PageRank to achieve top rankings for your site pages? No. It isn’t unusual at all to see sites with a PR of 4 outrank sites with a PR of 6. Why? Because PageRank is just one of the many factors - perhaps a couple of hundred - used to determine the relevance of your site for a given keyword and assign a ranking.
Having said that, we do need to aim for SOME PageRank. Start with some of the basics of link building, keep adding good content to your site, and always be on the lookout for quality sources of links. A PageRank of 3 is fine for a growing site. Do all your SEO basics correctly, then learn advanced SEO techniques and you will build your PR naturally.
PageRank, if it is to be lasting and valuable, is something that should be legitimately earned and that takes time. Trying to quickly increase your PR will send you down the wrong path. You might start looking for links from any sites with a higher PR than yours, whether they are related to your topic area or not. You’ll be tempted to trade or buy large numbers of links, and all the while spending hours upon hours of your valuable time that you could be spending creating great content and new resources for your site visitors.
After all, people want to link to something worthwhile, useful, informative, fun, newsworthy or even controversial. And those are the links you need. Those are the links the search engines want to see too, not the ones you traded or bought. In fact, having large numbers of purchased or reciprocal links could trigger ranking penalties.
Tags: link reputation, PageRank, PR