Page Rank And You

Page Rank & You

By Robert W. Newton

Many people confuse Page Rank (PR) and SERP’s. I have myself, in the past, discounted the usefulness of PR altogether. I had read a myriad of articles regarding PR, and all of the “experts” (NOT associated with Google) said it was pointless, and to concentrate on SEO that delivers SERP’s. While SERP’s are still, in my opinion, the more important of the two, PR importance has risen.

Why, do you ask? Good question. PR, for all intents and purposes, is Google’s attempt at predicting how likely someone will be to visit your site based on random web surfing. Although the exact algorithm is difficult, at best, to describe, it roughly equates to “more links equals higher PR” (all done on a logarithmic scale).

How does that work? A consumer is web surfing. They visit a site. While on that site they see a link to another site (whether they realize it’s another site or not is not important). They click on it. They’re now on a different site from where they started.

So, how does that relate to PR? Well, plainly put, as one of my old employers used to say, “It’s all in the numbers. You ask out 1,000 women, and 100 might go out with you. Of those 100 women, 10 might … (the rest I’ll leave to your imagination). The more women you ask out, the more might … “ So, the more links that point at your site, the more consumers might visit your site, and the more that visit your site, the more might buy – more visits yields more conversions.

So, more links, more buys. But, what about those people that try to fool Google (and probably do a pretty good job) into giving them a higher PR than they really deserve? How could they do that?

I’ll answer the 2nd question first. They get more links by hook or crook. What does that mean? They buy or trade links. If they get caught buying links, then supposedly Google punishes them. Ok. If they trade them, though, and here’s why trying to fool Google is a waste of time, they usually end up with a link that no one will ever find, can you say buried away on a “links page” that’s not prominently positioned, easily found, or navigated to? And, if the buyer can’t find it, it’s as good as useless.

The bottom line, don’t worry about PR. If you get lots of prominently positioned links to your site, you get more traffic, and more traffic equals more sales. And, for bragging rights, as a side note, you get a higher PR.