The Google page rank (GPR) is a score between zero and 10 (zero being the lowest and 10 the highest) that Google awards to every web page it references. A web page’s GPR is an indication of how important Google assesses it in relation to all other websites. The GPR can be seen within the Google toolbar in your browser for every web page you visit. (The Google toolbar can be downloaded from www.google.co.uk – click on ‘more’ then scroll down to ‘Google Tools’ where you will find it.)
Relevance first
A good ranking means that your website will rank higher in the search engine’s ‘natural’ results. For example, when a user searches for ‘couriers London’ Google finds all of the relevant websites (based on keywords etc.) then it lists them in order of importance, based on page ranking. Ultimately the higher its page ranking, the higher that website’s position on a natural search will be.
It is not enough on its own just to have a good GPR as this assesses importance, not relevance. Therefore when someone runs a search in Google it does not return all the websites with a high GPR, as these would not all be relevant.
Relevance is calculated using a separate algorithm. This algorithm assesses over 100 criteria and identifies websites that relate to a searchers’ query. Google then applies the GPR algorithm to sort the relevant websites in order of importance.
Getting the vote The GPR is based on the number of inbound links a web page has from other sites. Google sees a link from one web page to another as a ‘vote’. Next it assesses its importance by the number of votes it receives from other websites.
And then it adds a weighting to each link/vote based on the GPR of the page the link originates from. The higher the GPR of the source, the more weight is added to the vote for that web page. In other words 10 quality inbound links will outweigh 100 poor ones.
What’s a good ranking?
Most websites should be able to get a page rank of 1-2 fairly easily within a few months. With sustained attention a page rank of 3-4 is viable within six months.
It is important to understand that stepping up from one GPR to the next gets harder each time. The requirements to reach the next GPR increase exponentially between each rank.
A GPR of 5-6 is a very good rank and 7-8 generally indicates sites that have existed for a long time, are institutions or well-known brand names. At the time of writing www.bbc.co.uk had a GPR of nine while www.google.com held a GPR of 10.
Algorithms similar to the Google Page Rank are used by other major search engines to apply importance to websites. Both MSN and Yahoo use algorithms as part of their overall assessment of search results to assess the importance of each website. Each of these algorithms has a unique method of defining and assessing a web page’s importance.
For the good of all search The number of websites featured on the Internet is increasing daily. And since the GPR algorithm assesses the importance of each website in relation to others, this means that both search engines and website owners are aiming at a moving target.
Algorithms are set to change frequently in the future as search engines improve their techniques and update their algorithms to alienate the perpetrators of illicit tactics. Search engines are not trying to be difficult; they want to find the most relevant websites to a user’s search – that is their business.
Search engines are always refining their algorithms to improve the relevance of websites returned in their results. So concentrate on ensuring your website’s content remains relevant and current for your target market as well concentrating on your Google page rank.
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