subject: Google Pagerank - How Does It Work? [print this page] There is lots of discussion going around Google PageRank, what actually it means, how it affects website listing and what can one do to increase it. With the introduction of Google's toolbar, anybody who has installed it can now immediately see the PageRank of any web page online. But how does it work?
An algorithm developed by Google is used to determine the PageRank of a particular website based on the number of websites linking to a particular website, let's say your website. Higher the number, the higher will be your website's PageRank with certain requirements and conditions.
The first thing that is considered to determine the pagerank of your website is the pagerank of the websites that link to it. If the website linking to your website has higher pagerank then it carries more weightage. Google always gives more weight to the links coming from websites with higher pagerank. This in turn improves the page rank of your website. Therefore, it is highly recommended that should try to get the links from the websites that have comparatively higher pagerank. However, such links are quite difficult to get, simply because websites with better pageranks wouldn't like to bleed their pagerank to lesser known websites.
The second important thing is regardless of external website's PageRank linking your website; more weightage will be given to one-way inbound link than to a reciprocal link. At one point of time all links were considered equal. However, Google soon realized that reciprocal links were misused by the website owners to inflate their PageRank. The existence of so many schemes facilitating link exchange is the proof of the faulty thinking that all the links are treated equally. Haphazard reciprocal linking doesn't hold the same credibility as one-way inbound links. Therefore, it is quite important that you should seriously think before artificially inflating your PageRank, as Google knows all the tricks of the trade and can penalize your website heavily for it. With one-way inbound links, you don't have to worry about being penalized by Google. One of the best ways to receive high quality inbound links is to create rich and unique content. Original and high quality content is not only loved by the Google but also your website visitors. Many people who are interested in your content will list a link to your website on their site or popular social networks giving you the valuable inbound link.
The third thing is that there are many other factors apart from PageRank of your website, which determine your rankings in Google's search pages. So, the value of PageRank is quite important, but it is not the only factor that will help you to achieve top search engine rankings. If you perform a search for a particular keyword and study the top ten results listed on the first page, you will find that they are not ranked as per their pageranks. Therefore, it is important to take into account all the factors including the PageRank for complete Search Engine Optimization.
