What is PageRank and How Do I Get It?

What is PageRank and How Do I Get It?
By Christine Darrington

PageRank or PR is a value that Google has placed on web site content. The value is higher as the website ages and or gains an authority status. Quality relevant content will help to raise your sites PR over time. In addition, links pointing to your content from other web sites will also help the GoogleBot understand that your site has value to others. This increases your sites value and over time the PR.

The value of page content is ranked from zero to ten, ten being the highest value your site can achieve. However, a high PR does not always mean high search results. A site with a zero PR can be positioned higher due to a variety of reasons, including the content being deemed more relevant. However, there may not always be a visible or viable reason as to why one site achieves a higher position in the search results.

When Google established the use of PR as part of their search engine algorithm many unscrupulous webmasters began to abuse its purpose by manipulating the GoogleBot into giving their site a higher PR than deserved. This practice is still going on today and often times it is called a Black Hat technique. Yet using these techniques is something that webmasters interested in long-term gains and rewards need to avoid.

PageRank is only one of 200 different components as to how any one page or website gains a search engine position for any particular keyword search. PageRank is still one of the more valuable components, yet it is not the only consideration. Google tries to understand the relevance of your sites content by taking into consideration all 200 components including what other people think of your sites content.

One of the most important things you can do to build your sites PR is to provide relevant quality content. It is the springboard to a successful long-term search engine solution.

There are two parts to relevance that are important to incorporate into your site content.

1. The first and most important part is creating quality content for your reader. However, it is also important to arrange your content in a way that the GoogleBot can understand it. This is where a good understanding of SEO comes in handy. It's not a secret on how to do this. Google offers an excellent guide for webmasters to help them apply the best type of SEO for both readers and robots. All one has to do is visit Google and read their webmasters guide.

2. Acquiring referral links or "back-links" from other sites that are related to your sites content is the second part. The best way to acquire back-links is by obtaining natural links pointing to a variety of pages within your site. Natural links are obtained when people include a link within content of their site that leads back to your site.

Natural links can be acquired through sharing content of your site via RSS feed syndication, social networks, discussion forums, and articles submitted to other web sites and directories related to the content of your site.

An unnatural link would be one that is purchased for the sole purpose of gaining PR or a non-reciprocal links. One common practice to avoid is that of acquiring links from link farms. Link farms are formed using unnatural linking strategies. Buying hundreds of links to your site from link farms will result in your site getting penalized or worse, removed from Google.

Google is fighting very hard to weed out sites that try to buy or manipulate their way to the top of the search results. Employ good webmaster techniques and offer relevant quality content to your readers. Using these methods will help your site gain a higher PR over time and the results will be long term and rewarding.

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