PageRank, or PR, is something that is often misunderstood about websites. A site’s PR does not mean that it ranks highly in the search engines. It also doesn’t mean that the site gets a ton of traffic. While a site with high PR may in fact both rank high and get a lot of traffic, PR is actually a value that Google assigns to indicate how Google views the overall quality and relevance of that site. It doesn’t expressly indicate where Google ranks it in the search engine results. You might say that PR is the overall health of your site. The higher the PR, the better liked your site is with Google. If you have a good PR, but the rankings for your desired keywords are not very good, you then can focus on better optimizing the site. A site with a good PR will often have an easier time climbing the search engine results than a site that is new and has little or no PR.

There are several factors that are taken into consideration when it comes to PR; first is the number of inbound links to a site, second is the weight or value of those links, and third is the content on the site, including how often it is updated and how it is organized.

When Google assigns a PR to a site, that rank is Google’s overall thoughts on how important that site is in regards to the subject the site is about. As stated above, the PR doesn’t necessarily figure into where you rank for certain keywords. I have seen sites with a PR of 1 or 2 outrank sites with a PR of 4 or 5 on keywords. This usually means that while Google sees the PR 4 and 5 sites as being a little better overall, the PR 1 and 2 sites are still good, but are optimized better. It could also mean that the lower PR ranking sites are simply newer. Sometimes newer sites can rank high early, then they fall off the top spots and have to work their way back up the ladder.

Google considers both the number of inbound links and the weight/value of those inbound links when it determines the PR of your site. Having 20 links from sites that have nothing in common with your site will not carry as much weight as having just a couple of links from high quality sites with similar content. For example, if you have a site that is about making balsa wood planes and you go out and get 30 inbound links from blogs and directories and anything you can find to put your link on, then it will help your site get indexed by Google and might have a little impact on your rankings, but it will not help rankings nor PR nearly as much as going out and getting a couple of links from well known, established model/hobby sites. When Google sees an inbound link to your site it considers that a vote. When it sees a vote from a well-established “authority” site it gives much more weight to that vote than it does a vote that comes from just a list of random websites or a blog that is about an unrelated topic. The more “authority” sites that link to you the better looking your site becomes in Google’s eyes.

When it comes to content you need to be on point, relevant and well-organized. Design your site in a way that allows Google to crawl and index all of your pages. Ensure that your site deals with the topic you have chosen for the site. Using the previous example of a balsa wood plane site, you would want to make sure the content on your site is about balsa wood planes and hobbies surrounding that. If you have half your content on balsa wood planes and the other half of your content is a blog about your garden, Google is not going to know what your site is really about and that will hurt you when it comes to PR. Update your site as often as possible. When Google sees you updating your site it sees that you are active and that you are working to stay relevant.

When you put together good, focused, regularly updated content with quality inbound links, you are building a site that Google will look highly upon and reward with a good PR. PageRank may not expressly get your site ranked high in Google, but it is a good indicator of where you stand in Google’s eyes. In the end, PR is less important than rankings. If you have a low PR, but rank well for your keywords, you are probably going to be pretty happy. PR is most useful when you look at it as an overall report card of your site. It may not tell the whole story, but it can give you some good indicators about how your site is doing. If your PR is growing and your rankings are getting better, you are on the right road. If your PR is shrinking and your sites are doing worse in the rankings, you need to change your tactics or try something new because Google is telling you it doesn’t like where you are headed.