SEO Best Practices

2 On-Site Optimization – Site Level

PageRank

Figure 2: Sample Google PageRank voting illustration

2.1.1 What is PageRank

PageRank as defined in Wikipedia "is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page, used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of measuring its relative importance within the set."

Asside from the values of the links, the anchor text of the links play a huge role in ranking a page for a given keyword phrase. This not only applies to external links but to internal links as well.

PageRank (PR) is the modern search engine foundation for the commonly used term Popularity. A high PR page can out rank a more relevant page even if the keyword is not present on the page. This was identified when Search Engine Optimizers (SEOs) Google bombed the phrase "miserable failure" which linked to the White House Presidential page. The Google bomb has since been removed.

Google Bombing is the practice of getting massive amounts of links with a set of keyword phrased to rank a page in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). It is also the most common technique for ranking a site. The key is to make it appear natural in link growth.