The actual PageRank is a link analysis algorithm introduced by
Google in the year 1998 and it is mathematically rescaled by Google out
0f 100. This is the actual formula that tells Google which website has
more importance and deserves to be ranked higher. The PageRank that is
popular amongst bloggers and webmasters is the Google Toolbar PageRank
which has always remained the hot topic in SEO forums and blogs. Of
course most of you know that the Toolbar PageRank is a number between 0
and 10 which is based on the number of incoming links pointing to a
site. It is updated mostly four times in a year. The most recent PageRank update
was in November 8th 2011. Whenever I update readers about PageRank news
many people rejoice on hearing the news while some get demotivated. So
in today's post we will learn learn the technical reasons of why some
Pages rank high with just few links while others still remain where they
are despite several inbound links.
Is PageRank solely dependent on Incoming Links?
The answer is a straight no! It is true that PR is scaled on the number
of dofollow links that point to your blog or site, but if that was the
only source to achieve high PR then why does PageRank drop for some? and
why do blogs with just few links rank higher than those with several
incoming links? Google robots look carefully at three factors:
- Significance of your incoming links
- Balance of your Incoming and Outgoing links,
- Use of your Current PageRank.
Lets discuss these three phrases one by one.
1. Significance Of Your Incoming Links
Google scans world Wide Web every fraction of second and crawls and
indexes pages in its databases continuously. It looks for quality
websites with good generated content and categorizes them separately
from those forums, webs or blogs that publish poor content, old stories
and violate copyrights. When sites with rich authority and sites with PR
greater than 2 (i.e. PR>2) link to you, your blog starts attracting
Google spiders and forces them to pay you proper respect because you
have been recommended (linked) by a blog that has already won reputation
in the eyes of Google for the past 4 months and above. So significance
is actually referring to whether sites that link to you have some PR or
not. The higher a site's PR the greater its significance. Can there be a
difference in who is linking you? Yes there lies a big gap. Follow the
table below,
Please Note: Assume that your site has a PR 0.0 and your blog starts receiving the following Links from one single site. I repeat the incoming links mentioned here are from one single site and not several. See how these links can effect your PR.
Note: The follow data is based on my experience so far and are mere but close assumptions.
| Website's PageRank | Impact |
| PR 0.0 | 50 and above links required to earn a PR1 or PR0. |
| PR 1.0 | About 5-10 links from this blog Can Earn you a PR 1.0 |
| PR 2.0 | One Link can Earn you PR1 Greater than 5 Links Can earn you PR2 |
| PR 3.0 | One Link can Earn you PR 1 or PR2 Greater than 5 Links Can earn you PR2 |
| PR 4.0 | One link can earn you PR2 5 Links Will Earn you PR3 15 and above links will Earn you PR4 |
| PR 5.0 | One Link can earn you PR2 or PR3, Not sure about PR5 and PR6 |
| PR 6.0 | One Link can earn you PR3 Two Links PR4 Not sure about PR5 and PR6 |
I have mentioned the impact of 15 links only for PR4 because this is
what I have achieved so far and I really don't know the intensity of
impact at higher PR's for such numbers of link density.
For the past one year I have been receiving Guest posts on my blog and I
have observed how the number of posts from this blog benefitted the
Guest Author. With this current PR update MBT guest Authors have
received a PR1, PR2 and PR4 from a low PR stage. Hassam
our Senior Guest Author managed to receive a PR 4.0 while initially at a
PR 0.0 just by writing 25+ posts at MBT and still counting.
So if your fellow mate received a PageRank increase with just one link
and you could not with 20 or above links then check back to see if your
incoming links are rich and significant. This is one reason why some rank high while others do not!
2. Balance Between Incoming and Outgoing links:
Make sure to link external sites only when needed. When you link
external link , you are indirectly sharing your PR with that site.
Linking low quality websites or linking Iframe pages etc often effects
your PR. Of course your outgoing links will always be greater than your
incoming links but keep the ratio between them as low as possible. This
is indeed one of the best optimization strategies which is highly recommended.
If your incoming links are 100 and outgoing links are 10,000 then the
chances of a PR drop is certain. One way of keeping external links low
is to Tag them as nofollow. The nofollow tag will only allow your
readers to visit that link but that link will not be crawled by Google
robots.
Please read the following SEO based posts:
3. Use of your Current PageRank
Now
this phrase has a complete different meaning. This will answer the
question that why your PageRank drops when you have done nothing wrong.
You loose your AdSense Account
when you violate Google Terms of Services, similarly you loose your
PageRank when you disobey the rules set by Google PageRank team. It is
been clearly mentioned several times by Matt Cutts and other
webmasterhelp members that PageRank should not be misused. Misusing
means selling links on your website to link builders especially
webhosting companies. Selling links is equal to recommending a website
to Google just for the sake of money and not because of quality content.
When you receive a PR 3 or above, many linkbuilders will contact and
pay you to add their link to one of your high ranked post. They will pay
you as high as $200 per link for one year or all time. Money is
something that no one can resist thus they commit this crime and upon
next crawl of your page, Google detects that a new irrelevant link has
been added to your post which was previously not present and then the
robot scans other pages of your blog and finally comes to a conclusion "Link Sell Detected!"
Thus on next update you loose your hard earned PR. Please do not worry
about revenue, give more value to readership and social rank. Revenue
will naturally follow up.
Conclusion:
Do not worry about PageRank as you should be about Alexa Rank and your Social rankings.
Give more value to your readership. Work hard to increase the number of
your daily subscribers and pay less attention to revenue for the first
year of your blogging career. Everything will play just fine on your
behalf naturally when you set long term goals instead of wrong short
cuts. I hope this little info proves helpful in clarifying the technical
reasons behind PageRank drop and rise. Wish to see you all rejoicing on
next PageRank update probably on February 2012. Peace and blessings
brothers. :)