All about Google “Page Rank”

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm which was named after its creator – Larry Page. Google uses PageRank to determine the authority of any given website. PageRank often determines how high (or low) a website will rank in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for any given keyword.

Sites with relatively high PR often outrank those with low PR. PageRank is extremely important when it comes to SEO, Google and Organic Search Engine Traffic.

In this newsletter we focus on the factors that determine the PageRank of any given website and how you can focus on those specific areas of your SEO campaign in order to boost your website’s PageRank to get more organic search engine traffic.

How Google Algorithm is Calculated
(Source: Igor Kheifets)

Google constantly keeps changing the rules as soon as someone gets even close to cracking their data. However, overtime, great mathematicians have discovered an approximate way of how PageRank works:

In simple terms this equation can be translated into:

a page’s PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a “share” of the PageRank of every page that links to it)

*Share = The linking page’s PageRank is divided by the number of outbound links

Factors That Can Improve Pagerank

Check out the list of things that can improve your PageRank and help you rank higher in SERPs:

• Update Pages Frequently. Google bots are constantly indexing your website. Keep your pages relevant and up to date.
• Add Pages Frequently. Google recognises fresh content as a good thing.
• No Broken Links. Broken links are a disaster. It notifies Google that you don’t care about your website and therefore it doesn’t deserve Google’s respect.
• Good Neighborhood Directories With High PageRank Levels. Submitting your site to relevant, high PR directories gives you valuable high PR backlinks.
• Monster Websites. I have no idea what this means, just copied it from another trusted website.
• Quality Inbound Links. PageRank is all about the quality. 10 links from a PR 5 website is far better than 100 links from a 2 PR site.
• Quality Relevant Links. Relevancy is Key. Keep your link-building campaigns relevant to your sites theme.
• Everything Put Together. All of these will result in a significant PageRank boost.

Avoid & Monitor these!

• Bad Inbound PPSD Links. PPSD=Poker, Porn, Sex, Drugs
• Low Quality Content
• Link Spamming
• Black Hat SEO
• High Volume of Broken Links
• Check Your Site’s Current PageRank

You can check your website’s current PageRank over at http://www.prchecker.info/

Page Rank Tips

Below are some simple strategies you can implement right now to drastically improve your page rank within the next 14-21 days.

Quality Content

Google is all about the customer experience. Therefore, if you want to improve your page rank-you need to think like a customer. Next time you’re posting a piece of content on your blog, ask yourself whether it is quality content. Will customer stay on your website more then 10 seconds when he sees it? Will it make him want to read more of the related content you posted previously? Will his experience with your website be a satisfying one?

If you can honestly say that the answer is “Yes!” for all of these questions, then you can assume that your content is, in fact, high quality.

Submit Your Site To Web Directories

A web directory is a directory on the World Wide Web that specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. Web directories often allow site owners to submit their site for inclusion. Human editors review submissions for fitness. Wikipedia

Because of the fact that web directories are being monitored by humans, only mid-high quality web sites are being approved for submission. It makes it easier for Google to index those directories and trust the websites listed there. When submitting to web directories, you need to make sure that your website complies with the submission guidelines.

Start a Blog

A huge part of improving your page rank and SEO in general is content. The more pages of content you got on your website-the more authority with Google you get. A blog makes it easier to constantly add fresh content to your website-thus increasing the number of daily visits, subscribers and organic traffic.

Don’t Link To Just Anybody

When you’re being asked to link back to other web sites, always consider whether this link is going to be valuable to your readers. Unless linking to this website will somehow improve the visitors’ experience-don’t give out your precious link to anyone!

Guest Post on Other-More Powerful Blogs

By bonding with other bloggers and webmasters, try to secure a guest author spot on other blogs. Make sure these blogs have a higher page rank then yours. That way, when you’re going to write a guest post, you will have a valuable high page rank back link to your website/blog.

Keep It Fresh

Google loves fresh content. To improve your page rank-make sure to update your website with fresh, high quality content at least twice a week or so. That’s another reason why blogs are so SEO powerful.

Take Care of The 404 Pages

If you’re site has 404 pages (error pages-URL doesn’t exist)-you should monitor and redirect them
To find out whether your website got 404 pages use Google Webmaster Tools.
Source: Igor Kheifets

DIGITAL PROPERTY IS VALUABLE PROPERTY TODAY

In 2009, we wrote an article entitled “Your Domain is a Valuable Asset”.

Since that time we have noticed greater responsiveness to protecting this important “digital property”. Your domain is your digital property because it is the one monopoly point for controlling your website internet connectedness and your company contacts online. In addition, it is now connected to social media which is becoming important in your overall marketing and development of your communication platform, both online and in print.

Imagine if someone stole, or took your domain name from you now. Are your emails connected? Do people look for you under that name? Could the theft or acquisition be by a closest competitor?

How would you re-position your company online and in print where your website may be referenced? How could you ensure you could get the name again, or even anything similar or as good as this again? Domain names are getting harder and harder to get.

What damage could somebody in your organisation, or someone close to you do if they took your domain name and registered a similar business name in another state? This was recently tried by people close to a client f ours, as they had access to the password and the ability to change administration.

Forget about cyber crime, this crime can be of your own doing if you don’t protect your passwords and keep your registrations up to date, and limit access to the ability to control your website.

Please read the article below, which has now aged by two years, but has the same intent and theme, and keep this valuable asset in your business forever.

Your Domain is a Valuable Asset

I was going to write about marketing and customer retention when we had a meeting to discuss the number of our clients who leave their domain registrations very late, and almost too late.

Your domain for your website is a tremendous gift at only $44 for two years.

For that amount you can buy 12-13 cappuccinos, so it represents great value.

Remember your domain is used by Google to rank your site, and becomes known to clients and is a basis for advertising campaigns on letterhead, business cards, car signs, emails and other corporate image material. If you lose the right to that domain, which is only a lease for two years, and it is transferred to another person, you have lost a tremendous amount of investment and support for your company, brand and corporate image and referencing.
Why would you leave your domain registration so late after you have been notified about renewing it, if it packs such a high value in terms of investment, online presence, is the basis of recognized Google ranking, and costs so little?

To emphasise the point more strongly. What would Yahoo do if it lost its domain name? What would Car Sales do if they lost their www.carsales.com domain name, and were unable to retrieve it for a further two-year lease?

When domain sites are sold for up to $800,000, and those associated with core businesses bring millions of dollars, those in SME organisations should take note and put the valuation of the domain site in our e-world as their highest priority after, or alongside their brand name. The truth is that most of them don’t, and it becomes a last minute item that we have to try to retrieve for them when the truth of what they will lose suddenly dawns on them.

Imagine having to re-brand your website in the e-world with a new domain name, re-brand and re-sign everything in your business, contact all your clients, suppliers etc., and relay a new domain name, go through the process of optimizing and gaining a ranking for your site with Google – all because you couldn’t get around to renewing a $44 domain fee for a whole two-year business period.

Remember, we have no rights as a hosting company, to the domain either. When it is gone, we are unable to retrieve it for you. This goes for support domains as well that play a major role in directing traffic, creating competitive space, and assisting through landing pages and fighting brand sites for alternative or discounted products or services.

We frankly can’t understand this attitude, given that we spend the “hard yards” assisting new excited clients to try to claim great domain names in a world where Yellow Pages has lost its pull, and the website is becoming a valuable marketing weapon.

In the future, getting a good domain name will become as difficult as buying the best property in Melbourne or Sydney. Frankly, we are running out of good domain names, so if you have a good one, and you have invested in your domain, protect it and hang on to it at all costs. Welcome the reminder, and pay up quickly on http://domains.competitiveedge.com.au/

When you sell in our dynamic e-world in the future, the domain name will be an important part of your online presence that will create a good percentage of the value of your business. It is therefore part of your treasure chest or wealth creation for the future, especially if it also contains any brand names or corporate/ trading names which as far as possible, you should have encapsulated in at least one domain name.