Is PageRank Still Important? - By: Allan Michael Taylor

PageRank is one of the most important algorithms used by Google to provide relevant search results. It works by calculating page relevance according to the number and quality of links pointing to it. There are two "versions" of the PageRank. One is constantly calculated and used by Google, the other is rounded to an integer number from 0 to 10, publicly displayed and updated every few months. Many internet marketers dedicate a lot of time monitoring its change and comparing websites according to this magic number. But is this green bar, as it is displayed in some toolbars, really so important?

Google says no. And there is a reason for this. PageRank is only a reflection of importance of some page measured through the links that point to it. The most important measure of success for any internet marketer should be ranking of individual pages and the volume of organic traffic to the website. This is what counts and can contribute to conversion and consequently money. There are many cases where pages with low PageRank are displayed on top positions for some popular keywords and vice versa. If some page has high PageRank there is no guarantee that it will rank higher.

Internet marketers should be focused on keywords with high search volume and low competition. The green bar is an interesting measure of page popularity but does not contribute (at least directly) to position in search results. There are many other aspects and factors that are taken into account. One of the most important on-page elements that can contribute to higher ranking is good unique content. The fact is that links to your pages will also contribute to higher positions in search results and with some time also PageRank will probably increase, but this number has no direct influence to anything relevant.

However, there are some cases where PageRank can be important factor to consider. When you are searching for profitable keywords you are also checking the competition. Here comes this magic number pretty handy. Pages that have high PageRank are relevant and there are many links that point to them. Consequently, this means that significant effort would be needed to compete with them. So there is some usefulness of this number or green bar length.

In fact, having a possibility to quickly sort pages according to the general relevance is a very useful thing. This way you can easily distinguish authority websites from less important, recently created pages.

About the Author

A typical example of a site with low PageRank and good ranking is the http://humanresourcesjobdescriptions.org/ website. This is a small page about human resources job descriptions. Despite only few backlinks it ranks high for many keywords.

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