Page rank, an introduction

Google uses the ‘page rank algorithm’ amongst many other factors to determine which web pages are displayed at the top of search results. Expressed in a range from 0 to 10, the algorithm essentially ‘confers’ ranking from one page to another. Thus, for example, if a page rank 6 page links to you and there are no other external links on that page your page potentially gets a page rank boost of up to 4.8 (only a maximum of around 0.8 of the page’s own rank can be conferred). The reality is that the conferred ranking is distributed across ALL links on that page so a page rank 5 page with 5 links on it confers at most 0.8 page rank to each of its linked-to pages.

In practice, page rank is something the webmasters tend to obsess about, frankly because it is one of the few visual measures of ranking provided by Google, other than of course the presence of a site at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Page rank is, in fact, a measure of . . .page rank. Many webmasters rigidly refuse to trade links with sites with lower page rank than their own, regardless of relevance. This is a mistake.

There are a good many page rank 0 websites that appear at the top of the results for relatively competitive terms. Equally some high page rank sites don’t appear for their target keywords. All of this indicates that, as you may expect, page rank is but one of many ranking factors in the Google algorithm.

The Google algorithm has developed over time and is far more complicated than it used to be. For example trusted sites will have higher search rankings and Google is known to have had teams hand reviewing high traffic and ‘major brand’ sites. The ranking that really matters is overall ranking in the SERPs. Over the last few years many methods have developed to improve a page’s rank. Today, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of promoting a site’s overall search ranking by using a combination of various legitimate techniques.

Hidden Text

This is text that can not be seen in a normal browser. Some websites use hidden text to trick search engine spiders. Hidden text can contain high density keywords that make no sense to a normal person but can make search engines believe a site is about a certain subject. Hidden text can be implemented in many ways: beneath images, in white on a white background, within certain code-tags or just in a very, very, small font. It is therefore hard for search engine spiders to detect this kind of fraud, but they are becoming increasingly better at it.