How Google Decides PageRank

In the SEO realm there is a lot of attention paid to PageRank as an indicator of a domain's SEO value. Although it is one of the most important aspects of a domain's value in the eyes of Google, there are a few points that should be understood.nnThis is true for both external and internal links. Google assigns each page on the web a value and when one web page links to another it passes some value onto the page it is linking to. Google PageRank has eleven values, between 1 and 10. Pages that don't have any PageRank are often referred to as having N/A PageRank.The higher the PageRank, the more likely Google is to trust it. To begin with, for anyone who doesn't know what PageRank is - it is a metric used by Google to determine how important a domain is based on analysis of hyperlinks. nnProbably the most important factor in the distribution of PageRank to a web page is the PageRank of the pages linking to it. The higher the PageRank of pages linking to a given page, the higher its PageRank is likely to be. PageRank is generally not assigned to a web page higher than the pages that link to it. So, if a web page has 4 PageRank 4 and 3 PageRank 3 links pointing at it, it will probably be give a PageRank of 4. It should be noted, pages that have a lot of low PageRank and PageRank N/A hyperlinks pointing to them can have their PageRank lowered as a result. Sheer quantity of links does not help to increase PageRank. A site can have a high PageRank with relatively few links pointing to it if those links are of a high PageRank.nnSome people suggest that the text content of the page affects PageRank assignment, but this doesn't seem to be the case. There is no substantiated evidence that text affects PageRank other than pages that have been spammed often have their PageRank removed.nnWhen it come to sub-pages, time is a factor in PageRank distribution. When new sites first get assigned PageRank their sub-pages often remain without any PageRank. In general, sub-pages are somewhat slow to get give PageRank. Google is generally less trusting of sub-pages unless they belong to a trusted domain. In particular sites with a lot of sub-pages and even more so sites that link to a lot of internal pages (like directories) can struggle to pass their PageRank to internal pages.nnThe architecture of the site has a major role to play in the distribution of PageRank. Google uses what is known as block level analysis to analyses web pages. They use their vast knowledge of the structure of the web to decide what links on a page are probably the most trustworthy and the pages these links point to are more likely to be assigned PageRank.nnGoogle can and do manipulate websites' PageRank. This is generally as a penalty for sites that have used unhonest methods. This can often cause all the site's sub-pages to loose their PageRank. It has also been claimed that in the past Google has made mistakes in PageRank updates.nnLastly, the PageRank of a web page may change even when there has been no change in the hyperlinks pointing to that page. This is either due to changes in the structure of links between all websites or adjustments made by Google.nn

About the Author

Jessica Navarro is an SEO consultant with the SEM Labs SEO Agency where she helps small to medium sized companies with search engine marketing training.

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