PageRank (PR) is something that is quite often misunderstood; PageRank is not to be confused with search engine results page (SERP) ranking. PR is a value Google assigns to a website that indicates how Google views the overall quality and significance of the page; a page with a high PR may not necessarily rank high in search engine results or get a lot of web traffic. However, a higher PR site may have an easier time climbing in SERP ranks than a site that has a lower PR. Search engine optimization will not only help to raise your website’s SERP rank, but may increase the PR, resulting in a better site, overall.
There are several aspects that must be considered when it comes to PR; the number of inbound links to a site and the quality of those links, along with how the site is organized and how often it is updated. When a PR ranking is assigned to a website; this is Google’s way of grading the site with regard to how well the site relates to the subject. Sites with lower PRs may, very well, out rank sites with higher PRs, this just means that these sites have been optimized better; or that the sites are newer. Newer sites sometimes rank higher in the beginning and lose this ranking over time.
According to an SEO expert at Mangoco, “When determining the PR of your site, Google not only looks at the number of inbound links you have but the quality of the links. You may have 50 links from sites or blogs that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of your website and these will not carry as much weight as 1 or 2 quality links from well-known sites closely related to your topic.” When Google sees an inbound link to your site it considers it to be like an endorsement for your website, when it sees an endorsement from a well-established website related to your subject, this endorsement is given more weight than a link from a random website; therefore the more quality links you have the higher your PR will be.
Google also considers the content of your website in the PR; content should be relevant to your topic and organized in such a way that it is easily accessible and easily read. Design your site in such a way that it will be easy for Google to crawl and index all your pages. Make sure that each page of your website deals with the subject you have chosen for it. Your website should be updated as often as possible; Google views this as a positive; that you are working to keep your subject matter relevant.
In other words, a high PR means that you have a well-written, well-organized website that has quality inbound links and that you have built a site that Google looks positively upon. PR is less important than ranking; however a website that has earned a good PR will be much easier to optimize to achieve higher rankings. Therefore, a PR is a good indication of the quality of your website and should be considered important.
