Don't give a Hoot about Google Page Rank.

In my post The Frustration of Trying to Make Money Online, item # 6 on my list is Don't give a hoot about Google Page Rank.

There's a common path that people take as they're learning about doing business on the internet. At some point, they discover SEO (Search Engine Optimization)... the process of making your web site pages rank better for certain search terms. In other words, if you're selling real estate, you want your site to come up in the first page or so in Google (or Yahoo, or MSN) when someone searches on real estate and the city or area you work in. If you're selling custom made baseball bats, you want your web site to come up on the first page or so in Google (or Yahoo, or MSN) when someone searches on custom made baseball bats. The whole process of selecting the keywords that are pertinent to your business and making your pages rank well is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO for short).

There are many factors that affect your ranking in a particular search engine. They all have different algorithms (formulas) that are used to rank web pages. It's difficult or near impossible to rank well in Google, Yahoo, and MSN for the same site for the same keyword phrase. If ranking well in more than one is important to you or your business, then you may need to create multiple web sites.

You can read the various posts about Search Engine Optimization I've made in the SEO category of this blog.

What is Google Page Rank?
So what is Google Page Rank, often abbreviated to PR? It's an algorithm that gives a numeric score between 1 and 10 to a web site. It was created by Larry Page, that's why it's named Page Rank! Its algorithm looks at the number a quantity of links point to a site and a number of other factors to determine the ranking.

It's nice to have a site with a high Google Page Rank; however that should not be your goal. Unless, you're building a site from which you plan to sell links. Now keep in mind that Google frowns on sites that sell links: they say they will remove such sites from their indexes if them. Having a high Page Rank would allow you to charge more for a link if you're selling links.

What effect does Page Rank have on SERP Ranking?
SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the list of matching sites you get when you perform a search from a search engine. Everyone wants their site to be in the top 10 and would really love that #1 spot. Well, Google Page Rank has little effect on SERP placement. You can do the math on this yourself. If you have the Google toolbar loaded, you can see the Google Page Rank on any page you load. Or, there's a plug-in for the Firefox browser that will add the Google Page Rank to the info that accompanies each listing in a SERP. Either way, do a search on Google and look at the Page Rank of the top 10 results. They're probably greater than 0, but they're probably not in order of descending Page Rank. Time after time I've seen sites with lower PR out rank sites with higher PR in SERPS. I've out ranked higher PR sites with my own sites too.

Why did I think this was Important?
Because if you've been in various Internet Marketing forums you may have read post after post about Page Rank. You may think it's very important. You may be all depressed because your site, that you've spend so much time building and working on, has only a PR1 or a PR2. Well, don't worry about it. If you use some proper SEO knowledge you can out rank a lot of higher PR sites? How? Well, for that, you'll have to stay tuned to this blog (signup using the form below) and read some future posts. As I mentioned earlier, there are some very good SEO pointers in the SEO category of this blog... I'd read those too!

Until Next Time,
Fred

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