Search Engine Optimisation
Website Marketing and Promotion

Website Search Engine Optimisation Tips

Google's PageRank and Search Engine Optimisation

The PageRank (PR) is a Google link analysis algorithm that measures page importance of web pages within the World Wide Web.

The PageRank is based on the number and quality of links to and from a Website. The range of the PageRank is from 0 to 10, 10 being the best. The PageRank is updated every three months.

Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook all have a PageRank of 9.

Number of Links Required

These are the approximate number of Links required for each PageRank:

Obviously, some Links will have a greater value than others. To find out how many external Websites are linked to your Website, see Internal and External Links.

The Importance of PageRank

The content of a Web page is more important than the PR score in getting a good ranking. It is possible to have a good ranking for selected Keyword phrases, and to have a low PageRank.

The value of the PageRank has been slightly downgraded by Google over the years – " It's an important factor, but it's by no means the be-all and end-all." The other important factors are quality content, quality content and more quality content!

Unnatural Links

External Linking is open to abuse. This is what Google has to say on the subject:

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's Ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighbourhoods" on the web, as your own Ranking may be affected adversely by those links. Keep in mind that our algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links. Natural links to your site develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors. Unnatural links to your site are placed there specifically to make your site look more popular to Search Engines.

Improving your SERP Ranking

If your SERP Ranking is low due to strong competition, an improved PageRank becomes vitally important.

• The first step in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is to start by implementing all the suggestions mentioned in this Website. It is meaningless to improve the PageRank if the basic principles of SEO have not been applied.
• Make sure that there are no dead or broken links. See the page on Checking All Links.
• Make sure that all external links are relevant. Getting a Link on a Health site if you are offering Computer Services is going to hold little weight. Submissions that are not monitored have little value. Free for All (FFA) Link sites are temporary and have dubious value. Your Website could be listed next to sites of undesirable content.
• Make sure that each anchor tag <a> has a meaningful Title related to the context of the page.
• See the page on Creating Backlinks
• It will help if the external links come from different sources.

To find the PageRank of your Website, go to Google's Page Rank Checker

Link Juice

Link Juice is the amount of PageRank given to a page from an external link. It is Link Juice that improves the ranking for a search phrase, which in turn attracts visitors to a website. So if you want better rankings for a keyword, you need to get more Link Juice for that Keyword than your competitors.

Not all Links pass the same amount of Link Juice:

• Long-tail Keywords require fewer Links and less Link Juice to get well ranked.
• Links on Websites with a higher PageRank provide more Link Juice.
• Links with many other Links on the page provide little Link Juice.
• Links closer to the top of a page provide more Link Juice.
• Paid Links and Link exchanges provide little or no Link Juice.
• Pages that are not indexed provide no Link Juice.
• Links on unrelated Websites provide little or no Link Juice.

Placing NoFollow on pages with no Keywords increases the Link Juice available for all other pages.

Domain Trust and Domain Authority

Domain Trust and Domain Authority are used to assess a Website's PageRank. The factors influencing PageRank are:

• The number of Backlinks
• The diversity of the BackLink Websites
• The age of the Website
• Conformity to ethical standards
• The quality of the BackLinks

A new Website will take some months to acquire Trust and Authority. If the direction of the Website changes, it may again take months to re-establish Trust and Authority.