Empowered SEO Blog

Sharing information on Internet Marketing: SEO, PPC, Web Analytics, Branding, Web Design and Social Media Marketing

Calculating PageRank

Improving the PageRank of a webpage would enhance its status in Google’s search engine listing. You can improve the PageRank of a particular webpage by increasing the number of inbound links to the page. The more inbound links would mean higher PageRank and therefore greater chances that a random surfer would visit the webpage. However, it makes sense to understand how Google calculates the PageRank of a webpage in order to understand how we can manipulate link building to improve the position of a webpage. According to the founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google uses the following formula to calculate PageRank: PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn)) Sure, the formula looks intimidating. But it’s explanation is quite simple. It’s far easier to understand it when you split it up to understand the essentials. PR(A) – This simply means ‘the total PageRank of a particular webpage A equals’ (1-d) – This represents the initial PageRank of a particular page as assigned by Google. d here is the dampening factor, which is the probability that a surfer will click random links till he reaches this particular page. It is a constant factor determined by Google and is usually .85. So, (1-d) would be .15. So, each page starts with an initial PageRank of .15. PR(T1)/C(T1) – This part of the formula represents the PageRank boost coming from a link to the webpage T1. The numerator, PR(T1), represents T1’s PageRank, and the denominator, C(T1), represents the number of crawlable links on T1. So, in order to boost the PageRank value that Page A receives from being linked to page T1, you can actually do two things.

  1. Increase the PageRank of T1
  2. Decrease the links on T1

This is because if there  are greater number of links on T1, Page A’s link receives only a small share of Page T1’s PageRank. This simple process is the key to successful PageRank building. + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn) – This simply means “plus the PageRank coming from all the other pages that link to you.” Thus, a page distributes its PageRank over its outbound links and accumulates it from inbound links. However, distribution doesn’t mean losing its own PageRank. A page doesn’t lose its importance while voting for another page. From the above formula, it may be assumed that PageRank calculations may form an infinite loop on account of the number of links to a particular page. This is where the dampening factor d comes into play. Because of d, only 85% of the PageRank value assigned to the page is taken into consideration. 

Understanding PageRank Basics

PageRank is a numerical value that denotes the importance of a page on the web. It is a concept that is extensively used by Google. This ranking to a great extent determines the positioning of your webpage in the all-important Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Thus, a PageRank determines your online visibility and hence, can be termed the lifeline for your webpage or even your online business presence.  The concept of PageRank was invented by Larry Page, a co-founder of Google in the late 1990’s. Unlike traditional search engines, Google uses two key parameters to measure the importance of a webpage and position it suitably in the search engine results pages

  1. Relevance
  2. Importance

Relevance is decided upon by the text in the webpage – by determining if the content is relevant to the words typed on the search box.Importance, on the other hand, is determined by how many pages are linked to a particular webpage. It is assumed that all visitors to a particular web page are human. It is also assumed that visitors add links to pages that they find are relevant, important and useful to them. So, when a page has several links, Google assumes that it has a high degree of importance in relation to a particular search query. So, people, indirectly, decide the PageRank of a particular webpage.   Initially, Google assigns a numerical value to every webpage that it encounters and this value automatically increases as the numbers of links to that page increases. This PageRank eventually determines the relative importance of a webpage vis-à-vis other pages that are equally relevant to the search query. 

 Some people confuse the real PageRank as calculated by Google with the Toolbar PageRank that is now an add-on feature in most web browsers. A Toolbar PageRank is assigned a numerical value anywhere between 0 and 10 and can be seen on the web browser. Google categorizes all the relevant webpages for a particular search query logarithmically in any of these eleven ranges. So, the Toolbar PageRank is not the same as the Real PageRank that Google uses to rank its pages in the search engine results page. Furthermore, the Toolbar PageRank is updated only once in 3-4 months and is not an accurate indicator of the webpage’s current ranking. The Toolbar PageRank can be used as a very lenient point of reference but is not indicative of the real PageRank.

Top Black Hat SEO Techniques

Black Hat SEO may produce results. But, it’s unethical. And what’s more, it’s directed towards short-term gain but could lead to severe losses in the long run.

What is Black Hat SEO?

Black Hat SEO is the use of unfair techniques to promote a site on search engine listing. These techniques may work but the results are likely to be temporary. These sites are often banned if the search engines get wind of these unethical practices.

Read the rest of this entry »

Social Graph API from Google makes information about public inter-relations between people on the internet available in a easy to use format.

Google crawls the web to gather declared relations between people’s accounts (linked through XFN and FOAF). The API returns JSON data structures representing the social relationships.

Read the rest of this entry »

Search Marketing - A powerful storehouse for your Business Growth:

Search Marketing in today’s world has paved way for many a business to grow and succeed. There are many methods adopted by Search Marketers today to grow your business. One of them is Search Engine Optimization – SEO. SEO is the art or you can term it science to stay on top of the search engine result pages called the search rankings. And to stay top on these search engine rankings, it takes a dedicated professional team to manage Search Marketing Strategies including Search Engine Optimization – S E O. S E O is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural search results. Search engine optimization services allow your website to rank well on major search engines for targeted keywords & phrases. This leads to increase in lead generation which in turn leads to growth in sales. This apart, PPC, Media Marketing, Social Media, Email Blasts, Viral Marketing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Empowered SEO offers a great way to enhance your online presence, improve visibility for your website, attract visitors and build your brand online. The company offers internet marketing solutions to stay ahead in the cyber race. They do this through search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, eyeball-grabbing web design, comprehensive internet branding and through web traffic conversion.

Empowered SEO is a six year old internet marketing and SEO company with offices in New York, USA and Bangalore, India. The company is behind many successful online marketing efforts in real estate, medicine, e-commerce, cosmetics and various other domains.
Read the rest of this entry »

  • 2 Comments
  • Filed under: Press Releases
  • Empowered SEO is proud to be part of OMCAR 2008, World’s first online marketing career conference, held in New Delhi on 12 January, 2008.

    The conference brought in some of the leading online marketing companies from India like Pinstorm, Ozone Media, Komli etc.

    The conference had a job clinic associated with it

    The conference highlighted the growth in online marketing space in India.

    If you are looking for a career in online marketing or SEO please contact us.

    Technorati tags: , , , , , , ,

    Recent Comments