Following up from the post Is Google PageRank Really That Important? Nick from Social Media Trader agreed to give his insight on google pagerank. Feel free to extend your view and info in our comments parlour.
The Pagerank Myth
Pagerank can be important for your website, but not for the reasons you may think. It is the general consensus the toolbar pagerank does not have a direct impact on search engine ranking placements. As a result, you will find websites pages with lower page ranks appear higher than pages with higher pagerank on many search phrases.
So What does pagerank do?
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Pagerank reflects your website’s inbound link popularity – it is the links that are important. Incoming links are one of the most important factor in determining rankings. What matters most is the relevancy of these backlinks to any given search query.
When is Pagerank Important?
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Webmasters will use Pagerank to help them better identify and understand potential ranking bottle necks and a site may possess. For example if your pagerank is split in half overnight, you have likely been penalised by google. As a result, some of your pages may drop off the rankings. It is then important to work out these problems and rectify them quickly.
What you need PageRank for is to improve your crawling and indexing. Google won’t place very low PageRank pages in the Main Web Index.
So in short, focus on ranking. Push out great content, and make sure it gets read and linked to.
Guest Post by Nick from socialmediatrader.com
9 Comments
I used to think about Google Page Rank all the time, but now I just don’t care that much as long as people find my site/sites and I get worthwhile comments on my blogs I’m really not that bothered, but saying that, it is nice when you get a nice PR
Thanks for posting a followup. I think a lot of people are in the dark as to PageRank and what it means about a site.
I haven’t been asked to write a post on it here so I won’t try to. However, I will tell you that the only benefit PageRank has ever given me on my three blogs, and it fluctuates every 6 months or so, is the attention I get from sponsored post advertisers. When I had a PR4 I couldn’t write fast enough for all the 20-40 dollar offers that were coming in. At other times when my PageRank was lower, all I got were 1-5 dollar offers on colon cleansing etc. You get the point.
My Google traffic is high whether my PR is a 0 or a 4. It hasn’t seemed to affect that. The irony is, Google penalizes paid links so the same advertisers that pay you when you have big PageRank pull their offers from you after Google slaps you down for writing them.
In my opinion, something has to change and soon. Google is the biggest seller of links on Earth … need I say more? I just smile and focus on what I know will always be important to what I do: Backlinks, Traffic, and Money.
Ok, my way too long comment ends here
If you have a different opinion, I’d love to hear it … oh, and I have nothing against Google, I use a lot of their services. It;s just the PageRank thing I can’t really respect.
Nobody ever offers me money although I’ve been a ‘4′ for ages …… I was offered some soap once …. oooooo, and a wedding ring! Perhaps if I offered to go away, the money would come flooding in – tee hee
Google pagerank is the first palpable sign of *authority* seen on a blog, clever SEO as well as good content both contribute to a good page rank as we know – however I think that a blogger engaging with his or her community within their blog and other social networks shows much better *value* from an advertising point of view or for anyone wishing to spread a message across the web…if you have good traffic, a descent community based around your blog following you on Twitter or Facebook as well then your blog has authority regardless of pagerank.
How come your English is suddenly perfect? ….. or are my eyes crossed? …… tee hee
@DP: qw-wat?
That’s better – very reassuring …….
very informative …. thank you … I still need to take a course in what it all means .. but I am getting there
Sylvie said that well. It all comes down to how big your billboard is … metaphorically speaking. Unfortunately at this day in age, Google PageRank is what advertisers almost solely use to make you offers or not. I guess in a way that’s good because only the people who are ambitious and really love writing will stay the course regardless of Google PageRank. I know I’m in it for the long haul. It’s just too much fun to quit