How Does Google Determine Page Ranking?

by Hava Lyon | More from this Blogger

29 Jul 2007 10:10 AM

As I just covered, the higher the page ranking, the more traffic a website receives. This is important to you, the blogger, because if you write an article for a website that has a low page ranking (a 0 or a 1) then the exposure for that article will be minimal at best. If you put that article up on a website that has a high page ranking (a 5 or higher) then you are going to receive quite a bit more traffic, for the same exact article. Since traffic usually means ad revenue, you want traffic. I promise, you want traffic. ;-)

So now that you know what page ranking is and why you want it, let's cover how Google figures out what page ranking to assign your website. It all boils down to one very important aspect: Getting links from other websites. There is no magic to it, there is no secret formula (although I think you'll find plenty of spammy websites that will try to tell you otherwise) - if you get links from other websites or blogs onto your blog, your page rank will slowly rise over time.

There is a catch though (isn't there always a catch?) and it stems from Google's reasoning that if a larger, higher-ranking blog links to somewhere else, then that must mean that this somewhere else must be important. A larger blog or website isn't going to link to just any ole' website - they have gotten big because they take the time to put together a quality website, which means that the people they are linking to must also have a quality website. I hope that makes sense - if it doesn't, then leave a comment below and I'll try to clarify.

In my mind, Google's reasoning makes perfect sense, and although there are obviously exceptions to the rule, for the most part, a larger website does offer quality information, and links to other quality sites. So if you're running a blog with a 0 page ranking, and a large blog with a 6 page ranking links to you, then Google looks at that and thinks, "Hmm, this 0 page ranking site must be pretty special." Then if it continues to happen (just one link won't do it for you, sorry to say) then Google will eventually adjust your page ranking to reflect the fact that other highly ranked bloggers seem to think so highly of you!

Does this mean that you should only be aiming for blogs to link to you that have a higher page ranking than you do? Well, in a dream world that would happen, but in the real world, you take whatever links you can get and be happy for them. ;-) On my personal blog, I actually have a form that people can fill out, to request that I add their blog to my website. I get a handful of requests every week (even with my 0 page ranking) and I always check out the site before I make the decision to do it. I refuse to link to a spammy website that I personally would never visit, and unfortunately there are a lot of those around.

So now that you know what page ranking is, and you know how Google determines page ranking, let's discuss how to improve yours - check it out!

This was part of a series on blogging. If you haven't read the other entries in this series, make sure to check out the summary page for a listing of all blogging articles. Comments and feedback are always welcome - feel free to leave them below or send me an e-mail at Hava L {at} Families dot com. Thanks for reading!

Learn more about Hava Lyon

Hello, my name is Hava or Havs (depending on my mood and yours!) I am a freelance writer who writes for several blogs, both paid ones such as this one, and personal blogs.

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