Google's Matt Cutts talks about PageRank
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Published on 11/1/2006
PageRank is that magic number between 1 and 10 that Google
assigns to every website. It is a number that is computed using
the link structure of the World Wide Web and it measures the
relative importance of all pages. It is an important number that
partially allows Google to return the best results to a user's
query.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) gurus spend much of their time
trying to improve a site's PageRank because the larger this
number the larger the traffic driven to the site via organic
search results. Even though the algorithm for computing a page's
PageRank was published by Google's founders in 1995, the
algorithm has since been modified to scale up to the web's
enormous size as possible and also to circumvent being exploited
by SEO experts. These continuous changes to the algorithm are
not published and SEO engineers often find themselves trying to
understand how the algorithm works by monitoring Google's
behavior.
It is widely believed that the larger a page's PageRank the
higher it will appear on Google's homepage and the more traffic
it will receive. As a result, many webmasters lose a lot of
sleep over improving their site's PageRank. Since the value of
PageRank depends on the number and quality of incoming links,
webmasters often pay a premium to have a high PageRank site link
to theirs. In addition, webmasters can monetize their site by
selling links to others; if they manage to get their PageRank to
a value larger than 5 then they can sell these links at a high
cost. All these have created an entire economy around Google's
magic number.
Matt Cutts is a Google engineer who maintains his own blog often
talking about Google's competition, marketing strategy and
technology. Occasionally, Matt talks about the calculation and
significance of PageRank. Needless to say, many SEO gurus study
his blog trying to read between the lines and figure out how
PageRank is computed and used. Recently, Matt wrote to answer
some frequently asked questions about PageRank. In this posting,
he reveals that PageRank is not an integer between 1 and 10 but
instead a floating point number in the same range allowing
Google a high degree of precision. In addition, he tells us that
the number actually exported and shown on Google's toolbar is in
fact only an integer value. In addition, he points out that
Google continuously calculates this number and only exports it
to the toolbar once every a few months. People often notice that
PageRank numbers are changing on the toolbar every 3 months and
mistakenly assume that those are the only times that the numbers
are actually computed.
Finally, I would like to point out that Matt specifically says
that PageRank is considered by Google when a user performs a
search. Matt says, "By the time you see newer PageRanks in the
toolbar, those values have already been incorporated in how we
score/rank our search results." Some people have questioned as
to whether Google still uses PageRank in their search engine
algorithm. They claim that it only exists to sidetrack SEO
experts with malicious intent. Matt's sentence claims that
Google still uses PageRank in ranking search results reinforcing
the belief that it is still relevant; the actual importance of
PageRank, however, is hard to establish and as Google has said
in the past, the results presented to users are the product of a
very complex algorithm with many parameters including PageRank.
My advice to webmasters is to have a link strategy and try to
gain a healthy PageRank value. I would not recommend that people
obsess over PageRank and instead focus on content. Good content
will force other websites to link to yours helping you improve
its PageRank. Be very careful of SEO companies that promise you
many riches if you are willing to pay them a hefty sum of money
to improve your site's PageRank. Increasing this one number by
itself is not likely to have such a large effect. Original,
fresh and keyword content is still the best way to achieving
success online.
About the author:
Peter E. is the creator of The Dollar Factory, a portal for
webmasters with free guides for
optimization and
you are a new or old webmaster, join our growing community at
Dollar Factory
PageRank is that magic number between 1 and 10 that Google assigns to every website. It is a number that is computed using the link structure of the World Wide Web and it measures the relative importance of all pages. It is an important number that partially allows Google to return the best results to a user's query.
Google's Matt Cutts talks about PageRank
PageRank is that magic number between 1 and 10 that Google
assigns to every website. It is a number that is computed using
the link structure of the World Wide Web and it measures the
relative importance of all pages. It is an important number that
partially allows Google to return the best results to a user's
query.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) gurus spend much of their time
trying to improve a site's PageRank because the larger this
number the larger the traffic driven to the site via organic
search results. Even though the algorithm for computing a page's
PageRank was published by Google's founders in 1995, the
algorithm has since been modified to scale up to the web's
enormous size as possible and also to circumvent being exploited
by SEO experts. These continuous changes to the algorithm are
not published and SEO engineers often find themselves trying to
understand how the algorithm works by monitoring Google's
behavior.
It is widely believed that the larger a page's PageRank the
higher it will appear on Google's homepage and the more traffic
it will receive. As a result, many webmasters lose a lot of
sleep over improving their site's PageRank. Since the value of
PageRank depends on the number and quality of incoming links,
webmasters often pay a premium to have a high PageRank site link
to theirs. In addition, webmasters can monetize their site by
selling links to others; if they manage to get their PageRank to
a value larger than 5 then they can sell these links at a high
cost. All these have created an entire economy around Google's
magic number.
Matt Cutts is a Google engineer who maintains his own blog often
talking about Google's competition, marketing strategy and
technology. Occasionally, Matt talks about the calculation and
significance of PageRank. Needless to say, many SEO gurus study
his blog trying to read between the lines and figure out how
PageRank is computed and used. Recently, Matt wrote to answer
some frequently asked questions about PageRank. In this posting,
he reveals that PageRank is not an integer between 1 and 10 but
instead a floating point number in the same range allowing
Google a high degree of precision. In addition, he tells us that
the number actually exported and shown on Google's toolbar is in
fact only an integer value. In addition, he points out that
Google continuously calculates this number and only exports it
to the toolbar once every a few months. People often notice that
PageRank numbers are changing on the toolbar every 3 months and
mistakenly assume that those are the only times that the numbers
are actually computed.
Finally, I would like to point out that Matt specifically says
that PageRank is considered by Google when a user performs a
search. Matt says, "By the time you see newer PageRanks in the
toolbar, those values have already been incorporated in how we
score/rank our search results." Some people have questioned as
to whether Google still uses PageRank in their search engine
algorithm. They claim that it only exists to sidetrack SEO
experts with malicious intent. Matt's sentence claims that
Google still uses PageRank in ranking search results reinforcing
the belief that it is still relevant; the actual importance of
PageRank, however, is hard to establish and as Google has said
in the past, the results presented to users are the product of a
very complex algorithm with many parameters including PageRank.
My advice to webmasters is to have a link strategy and try to
gain a healthy PageRank value. I would not recommend that people
obsess over PageRank and instead focus on content. Good content
will force other websites to link to yours helping you improve
its PageRank. Be very careful of SEO companies that promise you
many riches if you are willing to pay them a hefty sum of money
to improve your site's PageRank. Increasing this one number by
itself is not likely to have such a large effect. Original,
fresh and keyword content is still the best way to achieving
success online.
About the author:
Peter E. is the creator of The Dollar Factory, a portal for
webmasters with free guides for
optimization and
you are a new or old webmaster, join our growing community at
Dollar Factory