Google's Page Rank, how important is it?

Never a day goes by without people asking what is Page Rank, why is it so important and why does everyone rave about it? Well it used to be important, but as far as your position in the search engines is concerned its importance has declined. It's easily possible to score highly on Google search rankings with little or no page-rank. As Google only update page-rank two or three times a year, it can take some time to get a page-rank.

Page Rank is very still useful for two reasons. The mere fact that a site has a value means that Google has seen it, understands it is there and has read it's content. Secondly when viewed on sub-pages it shows that the structure of the site is allowing the spiders to crawl effectively beyond the home page.

To explain Page Rank you have to grasp the difference between two specific elements, there is Page Point Score (PPS) and Page Rank (PR), they are very different. Typically a spidered page with no incoming links has a page point of 1 this equates to a PR=0. Each link gives page points to the recipient page. The value of how many points that migrate to the recipient page is based on the originating page's points divided by the number of outgoing links on that page. For example if a site has 11 pages, a homepage that links directly to 10 other pages which all link back. PPS of 1 will be awarded to the 10 pages but the homepage having 10 incoming links (from PPS 1’s) will be awarded 10 points. If the home page is linked to by another site with say PR3 (512 PPS) then you can see how the calculations take on a whole different perspective.

It should be noted that just because you have a PR4 site pointing to your, the migrating PPS is divided by the number of links on the sending page. So if the PR3 (512PPS) has 100 outgoing links the one that points to you will migrate only ... 5 (512/100).

The number of PPS to PR goes something like this; -

PR0 = 1 page point,

PR1 = 8 page points,

PR2 = 64 page points,

PR3 = 512 page points,

PR4 = 4096 page points,

PR5 = 32768 page points

PR6 = 262144 page points,

PR7 = 2,097,152 page points,

PR8 = 16,777,216 page points,

PR9 = 134,217,728 page points.

In the quest for incoming links care should be taken, not all sites especially those in frames and with dynamic content migrate PR. Any such link is virtually worthless as far as optimisation is concerned. Some very large well-known paper directories that have evolved on to the web are good examples of this.

So back to the question, why does everyone rave about Page Rank? Because when there is a Google Page Rank update it is reassuring to know that your effort has worked as expected and increased or better Page Rank is one way you can see that the optimisation work has paid off. Be aware though, that having a high Page Rank doesn't make your site score highly for search terms, but sites that score well for search terms usually have good Page Rank - there is a difference.